Centaurium (Erythrcea) Latifolium, Sm

The habitat of this plant is sands by the sea. The plant has the rosette habit. The stem is short, more or less simple, branched, 3-cleft at the top. The lowest leaves are more or less round. The upper leaves are egg-shaped, oblong, 5-7-nerved, blunt. The flowers are rose-colour, more or less in a head or cyme, or in terminal, forked, round, compact tufts, with short stalks. The tube of the corolla is as long as the calyx, the lobes lance-shaped. The flowers are half as large as in Centaurium umbellatum. The plant is 2-4 in. in height, flowering in July and August, and is a herbaceous annual.

Centaurium vulgare, Raf. = C. littoralis, Fr. - The habitat of this plant is sandy seashores. The habit is as in the last. The stem is simple (1 or more). The radical leaves are narrow, numerous, spoon-shaped, crowded, the upper oblong, linear, blunt, narrowed below. The flowers are rose-colour, stalkless, between the floral leaves, in dense cymes, or corymbose, usually 3-forked, with long branches. The corolla-tube equals the calyx, and the lobes are oval, oblong, blunt. The plant is 2-6 in. high, flowering between June and September, and is a herbaceous annual.

Centaurium Pulchellum, Druce (= C. Ramosissi-Tnum, Pers.)

The habitat of this plant is sandy ground. The habit is as in the last. The stem is simple, with 1 flower, or much-branched with several, acutely square in section. The leaves are egg-shaped to oblong, the upper lance-shaped. The radical leaves are few. The flowers are without bracts, rose-colour, all stalked, terminal, and in the axils, in a loose cyme or forked panicle, with a flower in each fork. The corolla tube is longer than the calyx, the lobes elliptic to oblong, lance-shaped, blunt. The lateral flowers are distant from the floral leaves. The plant is 1-6 in. high, flowering from June to September, and is a herbaceous annual.

Small Yellow Gentian (Microcala Filiformis, H. & L.)

The habitat of this plant is sandy bogs, damp sandy places. The plant has the rosette habit. The stem is slender, threadlike (hence fili-formis), forked, angled, simple or branched above, the branches more or less erect. The radical leaves are linear to lance-shaped, the stem-leaves awl-like, all stalkless. The flowers are solitary, yellow, with the parts in fours, the calyx bell-shaped, with broad, triangular, acute lobes, the corolla-lobes blunt, as long as the tube. The flower-stalks are stout and very long. The stigma is pin-headed. The capsule is round. The plant is 4-8 in. in height, flowering between July and October, and is a herbaceous annual.