It is a green-house plant, a native we understand of the Cape; and arises with a straight, but little branched, woody stem, to the height of about 3 feet: the branches are cylindrical and silky: the leaves alternate and ternate, inclining to hoary, with pubescent and channelled foot-stalks: the leaflets are lance-shaped, or linear-lanced, once and an half, or sometimes twice the length of their common foot-stalk, and furnished beneath with minute, close-pressed hairs: the flowers are in a terminal racemus, large, yellow, and showy; and are produced in the month of July. Hitherto we have seen this plant only at the Nursery of Messrs. Colvill, in the King’s Road, where our drawing was made. In favourable seasons the plant will probably ripen its seeds in this country: and at other times we have no doubt of its being capable of propagation by cuttings in the usual way; although we do not know that this has yet actually been done. [Illustration] PLATE CCCCXVIII. GENTIANA CATESBÆI. _Catesby’s Gentian._ CLASS V. ORDER II. ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. COROLLA monopetala. Capsula bivalvis, unilocularis; receptaculis duobus longitudinalibus. BLOSSOM one-petalled. Capsule two-valved, one-celled; with two longitudinal receptacles. SPECIFIC CHARACTER, &C. GENTIANA, foliis remotis oppositis ternatisque, corollis verticillatis ventricosis decemfidis, laciniis alternis inæqualiter bifidis lacerisque; calycibus minute ciliatis. GENTIAN, with remote opposite and ternate leaves, whorled ten-cleft bellied flowers, with their alternate segments unequally bifid and torn; and minutely ciliated empalements. GENTIANA (_Catesbæi_), corollis campanulatis ventricosis extus cæruleis, foliis lanceolatis remotis. _Walt. Fl. Carolin. 109._ GENTIANA (_Saponaria_), corollis quinquefidis campanulatis ventricosis verticillatis, foliis ovato-lanceolatis trinerviis. _Willd. Sp. Pl. 1. 1338._ REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 1. The empalement. 2. The blossom spread open. 3. The pointal. The beautiful species of Gentiana here represented, does not appear to be noticed either in Willdenow’s edition of Species Plantarum, or the Hortus Kewensis of Mr. Aiton; except by the former of these authors, as being synonymous with G. Saponaria; from which as a species we conceive it distinct: neither do we find it enumerated in Mr. Donn’s Hortus Cantabrigiensis: but it is described by Walter in his Flora Caroliniana, under the name of Catesbæi; and is known in several of the principal gardens in the neighbourhood of London by that appellation; which we have therefore thought it more eligible to adopt, than run any risk of occasioning confusion by applying a new one. The plant is perennial and herbaceous, a native of Carolina, and is propagated by parting its roots in autumn, or early spring; but requires a moist sheltered situation, and peat earth in the open air, to make it flourish.