Gentiana flavida
Gentiana decora
white prairie or white or cream or yellowish or pale gentian
Appalachian gentian, mountain gentian, showy gentian
1–10, terminal from caudex, decumbent to erect.
1–4, terminal from caudex, decumbent to erect.
cauline, ± evenly spaced;
blade lanceolate to ovate, 5–15 cm × 15–50 mm, apex acuminate.
cauline, ± evenly spaced or somewhat more widely spaced distally;
distal blades lance-elliptic to ovate-elliptic, 3–10 cm × 7–40 mm, apex acute to acuminate;
proximal blades oblanceolate to obovate, apex obtuse to acute.
dense 1–20-flowered cymes, often also with additional clusters at 1 or 2 nodes.
± dense 1–15-flowered cymes or heads, sometimes with additional flowers at 1–3 nodes or on short branches.
calyx 10–30 mm, lobes spreading, with bracketlike keels, lanceolate to ovate-triangular, 3–15 mm, margins not ciliate;
corolla white, sometimes with yellowish or greenish tinge (drying yellowish), with veins outlined in green, tubular, loosely closed or slightly open, 30–55 mm, lobes incurved to nearly erect, widely ovate-triangular, 4–6 mm, free portions of plicae obliquely triangular, erose to shallowly lacerate, with minute, deflexed second segment;
anthers connate or some sooner or later distinct.
calyx 10–20 mm, lobes ± erect, subulate to linear or occasionally oblanceolate, 2–8(–12) mm, margins ciliate;
corolla white to pale or occasionally medium blue or violet, tubular, loosely closed to fully but narrowly open, 25–45 mm, lobes ovate-triangular, 3–6 mm, longer than plicae, free portions of plicae divided 1/2 or more of their length into 2 unequal, ± triangular, lacerate segments, narrower segment usuallly deflexed;
anthers connate.
winged.
winged.
= 26.
= 26.
Gentiana flavida
Gentiana decora
The name Gentiana alba Muhlenberg has often been applied to this species. Uncertainty had long persisted, first as to whether the name G. alba was validly published by G. H. E. Muhlenberg in 1813, then, after that publication had been deemed invalid, whether it was validated by T. Nuttall in 1818. A group of nomenclatural authorities considered this issue on behalf of this flora and concluded that neither of those publications of the name G. alba had been valid, and that G. flavida A. Gray was the earliest validly published name for this species (K. N. Gandhi, pers. comm.).
Outlying eastern populations of Gentiana flavida in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are no longer extant, and the continued existence of other peripheral populations in isolated prairie remnants is precarious. Reports from Manitoba have been based on misidentified G. rubricaulis. A report from Maryland was based on the misreading of a label of a specimen actually from Indiana (studies for this flora).
In contrast to those of the other species of Gentiana in the flora area, with the exceptions of G. clausa and G. latidens, the calyx lobes of G. flavida spread widely, with keels like shelf brackets decurrent on the tube.
Morphological variation in Gentiana flavida should be given further study. According to J. T. Curtis (1959), plants of this species from the northern part of its range, as seen in the field, appear distinctly different in inflorescence form from plants native farther south.
In the tall-grass prairies, Gentiana flavida hybridizes with G. andrewsii, producing G. × pallidocyanea J. S. Pringle, and G. puberulenta, producing G. × curtisii J. S. Pringle. Reports of G. flavida with the corollas distally lilac have been based on plants derived from such hybridization, probably through backcrossing.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Hybrids of Gentiana decora with G. austromontana, G. clausa, and G. saponaria are known.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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