gentianella

It was the common denominator of casual dress. (bas blu.com)Perhaps the good authress was trying to compliment her friend's fashion, and still reference her intellect. (a bluestocking - interested in science and learning AND female, but even more than than, a gentianella - more fashionable and beautiful than those darn casual but practical bluestockings) - kathy

Sorry Her Lot Who Loves Too Well - A Dress A Day 2007

Definitely sounds like gentianella is 'a dwarf gentian', by extension a purplish blue color, and so might apply to a derivative of a bluestocking in the female sense.

Sorry Her Lot Who Loves Too Well - A Dress A Day 2007

This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as the gentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large pattern; over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so large for her, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor.

Villette 2003

For two or three years I do not remember to have seen it, or the seedlings, without flowers; its pretty, dwarf, rue-like foliage grew so thickly that it threatened to kill the edging of gentianella and such things as _Polemonium variegatum_, the double cuckoo-flower, and the little _Armeria setacea_; it also filled the walks, and its long wiry roots have been eradicated with difficulty.

Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, Rockeries, and Shrubberies. John Wood

We felt it to the full; yet none the less, but rather the more, could we feel at the same time the delicate and ethereal beauty of the fringed gentianella and the pale Alpine lilies scattered on the short turf beside us.

Little Rivers; a book of essays in profitable idleness Henry Van Dyke 1892

From these one might be led to imagine that each plant at first consisted of a single bulb or flower to each root, as the gentianella and daisy, and that in the contest for air and light, new buds grew on the old decaying flower-stem, shooting down their elongated roots to the ground, and that in process of ages tall trees were thus formed, and an individual bulb became a swarm of vegetables.

Evolution, Old & New Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, as compared with that of Charles Darwin Samuel Butler 1868

Horatia was still in mourning for her mother, and wore a black skirt, but Lucilla's was of rich deep gentianella-coloured silk, and the buttons of her white vest were of beautiful coral.

Hopes and Fears or, scenes from the life of a spinster Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862

'I should not mind being like a gentianella,' said Amy.

The Heir of Redclyffe Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862

This being wore a gown of brocade, dyed bright blue, full-tinted as the gentianella flower, and covered with satin foliage in a large pattern; over the gown a costly shawl, gorgeously bordered, and so large for her, that its many-coloured fringe swept the floor.

Villette Charlotte Bront�� 1835

From these one might be led to imagine, that each plant at first consisted of a single bulb or flower to each root, as the gentianella and daisy; and that in the contest for air and light new buds grew on the old decaying flower stem, shooting down their elongated roots to the ground, and that in process of ages tall trees were thus formed, and an individual bulb became a swarm of vegetables.

Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766