Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
Gentianaceae - The Gentian Family
Late summer and fall-flowering annual and perennial herbs. Leaves opposite, entire, sessile, exstipulate. Flowers 1-many, clustered and sessile or terminal and solitary on long peduncles, blue to bluish-purple, often greenish or whitish on the outside, rather large and showy, perfect, regular, 4- or 5-merous; calyx tubular, obconic or funnelform, the lobes often unequal; corolla tubular, obconic, funnelform or campanulate, sometimes plicate between the lobes, convolute in bud, the plicate membrane erose to toothed or lacerate at the summit; stamens 4 or 5, epipetalous, alternate with the corolla lobes; stigma 2-lobed, style short, ovary superior, 1-celled, ellipsoid to cylindric. Fruit a 2-valved, many-seeded capsule enclosed by the marcescent corolla.
| Lead | Characteristic | Go To |
| 1 | Flowers 5-merous, appearing axillary and clustered in the upper part of the plant; plants perennial. | Genus Gentiana |
| 1 | Flowers (or flower) 4-merous, terminal, long-peduncled; plants annual. | Genus Gentianopsis |
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