but Mr. Brown informs me that specimens collected by Bidwill and Lyall are in the Kew Herbarium, and that together with another form with long leaves it makes up the principal part of the G. pleurogynoides of the Handbook (but not of Grisebach). This long-leaved plant Mr. Brown is inclined to unite with G. Townsoni, but for the present I have placed it in my G. patula.
7. G. montana, Forst. Prodr. n. 133.—Perennial; rootstock stout and woody, often branched at the top. Flowering stems one or several, simple, terete, very tall and stout, 10–24 in. high. Radical leaves usually very numerous, densely crowded, spreading, ¾–1½ in. long, ⅓–¾ in. broad, broadly obovate-spathulate, rounded at the tip or subacute, gradually narrowed into a broad flat petiole, 3–5-nerved, coriaceous, rather thick and fleshy when fresh. Cauline leaves in 2–6 opposite pairs, sessile, broadly ovate or oblong, 3–5-nerved or in large specimens 7-nerved, acute or subacute, often cordate at the base. Flowers very large, white, often ¾–1 in. diam., in broad many-flowered umbels or cymes 2–4 in. across; pedicels long, slender; bracts broad, usually whorled. Calyx from one-half to nearly two-thirds the length of the corolla, cut three-quarters way down; lobes lanceolate, acute. Corolla deeply divided; lobes broadly oblong or obovate, rounded at the tip.—A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 203; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 399 (but not of Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 178, nor of Handb. N.Z. Fl. 190).
Var. stolonifera.—Much more slender, 8–16 in. high; stem with long creeping stolons at the base. Radical leaves 1–3 in. long, oblong- or elliptical-spathulate, rather thin; petiole more slender, as long as the blade. Flowers fewer, ½–¾ in. diam., white with purple streaks.
South Island: Nelson—Mount Frederic, Mount Rochfort, Mount Buckland, and other peaks on the coast ranges near Westport, abundant, W. Townson! Otago—Dusky Sound, Forster, Anderson, Lyall. 2000–4000 ft. January–March.
At the time of the publication of the Flora and Handbook there was no authentic specimen of G. montana at Kew, and Forster's original diagnosis is so short and scanty that the position of the species was quite conjectural. Hooker applied the name to the slender annual plant with linear-subulate calyx-lobes originally described by him in the "Icones Plantarum" as G. Grisebachii, and for many years this determination was acquiesced in by New Zealand botanists. But a set of Forster's plants now exists at Kew, and another in the British Museum Herbarium. Mr. N. E. Brown, who has critically examined for me the New Zealand Gentians preserved in both collections, informs me that Forster's types of G. montana represent an altogether different plant to G. Grisebachii, but that they agree with specimens collected in Dusky Sound by Anderson during Cook's third voyage, and subsequently in the same locality by Lyall. I am indebted to Mr. Brown for tracings of Forster's two specimens, which appear to be the only ones extant in England, and also of three of Lyall's. Forster's are far from good; but Lyall's correspond so closely with a plant collected on the coast ranges near Westport by Townson that I can hardly doubt their being identical, although the Westport specimens are rather larger and stouter. Both agree in the numerous crowded obovate-spathulate radical leaves, and the short and broad cauline leaves, which are sessile and cordate at the base, and the inflorescence is practically the same. And both agree fairly well with the description given in A. Richard's "Flore de la
