Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Plain Gentian is a native erect perennial forb growing 1 to 2-1/2 feet high on smooth stems that are usually not branched, but with multiple stems from the root. Stems may lodge over considerably in low light conditions.

Leaves are a yellow green in full sun, opposite, stalkless to clasping the stem, broadly ovate with a pointed tip and a slightly heart-shaped base at the stem when not clasping. At the top of the stem just below the terminal inflorescence several leaves form a whorl - the only leaf whorl on the plant.

The inflorescence is terminal cluster of stalkless flowers with axillary clusters sometimes in the upper leaf axils below the leaf whorl.

The flowers have a closed corolla tube 1 1/4 to 2 inches long shaped from five lobes that are of various shades depending on ecotype - from greenish-white to white to cream colored. Flowers can also be slightly yellowish but it is usually a creamy white. The corolla lobes have erect tips that remain closed to only partially open. There are irregular folds between the lobes. The flower calyx is much shorter than the corolla and has ovate lobes with pointed tips. There are 2 small bracts under the calyx. The reproductive parts include 5 stamens that rise from around the base of the ovary. These have greenish-white filaments and yellow anthers. The ovary has single style with a branched tip. The stamens are held against the ovary (but not united with it) with the anthers surrounding the style. As the ovary enlarges with fertilization it becomes ovate to elliptical, somewhat flattened while the stamens wither away.

Seed: Fertile flowers produce a 2-sectioned seed capsule that splits when mature to release several hundred small flattened brown seeds to the wind. They have no pappus but are light enough (140,000 to the ounce) for wind distribution. Only large bees such as the bumblebee can force open the corolla tip for pollination. For germination, seeds require 60 days of cold stratification and light when planted so they should be surface sown.

Habitat: Plain Gentian grows in well drained soils of moist meadows, prairies and open woods with full sun to partial shade. It tolerates wet-mesic to dry-mesic conditions. The root system is rhizomatous and from the rhizomes the plant can reproduce.

Names: The genus Gentiana is named after King Gentius of Illyria who, according to Pliny, discovered that the roots of certain Gentian species have medicinal qualities. There are two accepted species names for this same plant - the discussion centering on which person deserves credit for the classification. The species name alba is Latin for "white."

The author names for that plants classification are: ‘Muhl’ is for for Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg (1753-1815) American Botanist who produced several catalogs of plants after retiring as a Lutheran pastor. His incomplete work was revised and republished by ‘Nutt.’ who is Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859) English botanist who lived and worked in America from 1808 to 1841. On his many expeditions he collected many species including some that had been originally collected by Lewis and Clark but lost by them on their return journey. He was indefatigable as a collector but incompetent in many practical matters. Washington Irving wrote of him in Astoria “Mr. Nuttall was a zealous botanist - forgetful of everything but his immediate pursuit.” He revised and added to French botanist Francois Andre Michaux’s 3 volume North American Sylva.

The alternative species name, flavida, means 'yellowish' and the author name for that classification ‘A.Gray’ is for Asa Gray (1810-1888), American botanist, Professor of Natural History at Harvard and instrumental in unifying plant knowledge of North America and author of Gray’s Manual - Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, from New England to Wisconsin and South to Ohio and Pennsylvania Inclusive. He was a student of John Torrey and became his assistant. His first book, Elements of Botany was the first text to use the new Natural System of classification. He and Torrey collaborated for the remainder of their lives. The merits of each claim is beyond our scope here but needless to say, various entities have chosen their name - The Garden uses species alba as does USDA and the Minnesota authorities at the U of M Herbarium. The MN DNR however uses species flavida (2019). Both are the same plant.

Comparisons: Plain Gentian is similar in appearance to the blue flowered Closed Gentian, Gentiana andrewsii, except for the flower color.