Family: Gentianaceae,
Gentian
Genus: Gentiana
Description
Plant height: 5-30 cm tall.
Growth habit:
tufted perennial, erect to creeping at base,
from fleshy thick roots, without rhizomes.
Stems:
usually several, simple, hairless.
 Leaves: opposite, hairless, mostly 7-9 pairs, the lowest
joined around stem at base, but usually with blades at least
as long as the sheath. Main stem leaves 1-2.5 cm long,
broadly lance-shaped to ovate-rounded.
 Flowers: funnel-shaped, usually single or in terminal 3's.
Corolla 25-40 mm long, deep blue and variously streaked or
mottled with green, to (rarely) yellowish, with 5 spreading,
pointed or rounded lobes, with 2-4 fringes between each
lobe. Calyx funnel-shaped, 4-10 mm long, from membranous
and bluish- or purplish-tinged to greenish overall. Lobes from
broadly oval and spreading, to lance-shaped and erect and
from twice as long as the tube to greatly reduced and linear
to oblong, or lacking entirely, the calyx tube then usually
deeply cleft to unequally 2-lipped.
Flowering time: July-October.
 Fruits: capsules with flattened, spindle-shaped seeds.
Distribution
Meadows, swamps, and stream banks, montane to alpine
zone, in w. and s. parts of MT. Also from B.C. to CA. |
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