Gentiana flavida
Gentiana glauca
white prairie or white or cream or yellowish or pale gentian
glaucous gentian, glaucous or blue-green or inky gentian, pale gentian
1–10, terminal from caudex, decumbent to erect.
erect, arising singly at intervals from slender, elongating, horizontal rhizomes, forming patches.
cauline, ± evenly spaced;
blade lanceolate to ovate, 5–15 cm × 15–50 mm, apex acuminate.
basal and cauline;
cauline ± abruptly more widely spaced;
blade elliptic to spatulate-obovate, apex obtuse;
basal and rosette leaf blades 0.8–2(–2.7) cm × 4–12 mm;
cauline blades 0.5–1.7 cm × 3–8(–12) mm.
dense 1–20-flowered cymes, often also with additional clusters at 1 or 2 nodes.
reduced, ± dense cymes, 2–5(–7)-flowered, also often a pair at most of the distal node, rarely solitary flowers.
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 5–7 mm, lobes ascending, lanceolate-triangular, 2–4 mm, margins not ciliate;
corolla greenish blue or greenish yellow, rarely white, tubular, opening narrowly, (8–)12–20 mm, lobes ascending, triangular, 1.8–4 mm, free portions of plicae rounded, minutely erose;
anthers distinct.
winged.
winged.
= 26.
= 24.
Gentiana flavida
Gentiana glauca
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.)
The description by Kellogg of var. paulensis does not indicate clearly how this variety was believed to differ from Gentiana glauca elsewhere in its range. Specimens from the Pribilof Islands examined in studies for this flora, including an isotype and other plants from Saint Paul Island, do not appear to be taxonomically separable.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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