Great Lakes Gentian

Gentiana rubricaulis

Plants: erect, perennial, 30 to 71 cm tall forb
Leaves: mostly stalkless, smooth, light green, opposite
Flowers: white with blue spots to pale greenish/violet to white or gray tinged with blue, 5-parted, 2 to 5 cm long, tubular-shaped with a small opening at the top, folds with 1 tooth between the petals; inflorescence usually terminal clusters; blooms Aug.-Sept.
Gentiana rubricaulis Differs from Bottle Gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) which has deep blue flowers that remain closed and flowers with overlapping rounded lobes and fine teeth at the tips. Great Lakes Gentian flowers are paler and open and the small sepals are toothed. In a restored fen (peatland) in full sun. Gentiana rubricaulis,Geotagged,Great Lakes Gentian,Summer,United States,fen,flower,gentian,peatland,wetlands

Naming

Gentiana rubricaulis Schwein.

The genus is named after Gentius, King of Illyria, who around 500 B.C. found the roots of the herb yellow gentian or bitterwort to have a healing effect on his malaria-stricken troops.

Distribution

Canada: New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan
US: Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota

Status

Rare in Maine

Habitat

Widespread in many moist, usually alkaline, sites: shores, interdunal hollows, meadows; bogs and fens; river and stream margins; sandy and marly excavations; alder thickets, coniferous swamps, depressions in pine plains; rock crevices and pool margins on Lake Superior.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentiana
http://wisflora.herbarium.wisc.edu/taxa/index.php?taxon=3689
https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/great-lakes-gentian
https://michiganflora.net/species.aspx?id=1395
Taxonomy
KingdomPlantae
DivisionAngiosperms
ClassEudicots
OrderGentianales
FamilyGentianaceae
GenusGentiana
SpeciesGentiana rubricaulis
Photographed in
United States of America