Gentianella amarella subsp. acuta
Northern gentian, Northern Gentian
Family: Gentianaceae · Type: annual · Native
Northern gentian is a California native annual found in the Klamath Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, San Bernardino Mountains, and White and Inyo Mountains in wet meadows and bogs at elevations of 1,500 to 3,500 meters. Flowering from July to September, this plant produces blue to rose-violet or white flowers 7 to 15 millimeters long with fringed ovate-triangular lobes. Growing 5 to 80 centimeters tall with an erect stem often branching near the base, it has a distinctive growth pattern with shorter branches above. Its lower leaves are spoon-shaped to elliptic-oblong, crowded and less than 45 millimeters long, while upper cauline leaves are lance-oblong to ovate and smaller than the stem internodes. The flowers are arranged in clusters with pedicels generally less than 2.5 centimeters long.
Habitat: Wet meadows, bogs
Bloom period: Jul-Sep
Elevation: 1500-3500 m
Bioregions: KR, CaRH, SNH, SnBr, W&I
California counties: San Bernardino, Tulare, Mono, Siskiyou, Butte, Inyo, Trinity, Tehama, Sierra, El Dorado, Placer, Tuolumne, Nevada, Alpine, Plumas, Lassen, Fresno
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.