Authors: Gaudich.  

Botanical Description

Erect annual or biennial, the stems simple or branched above the middle, up to 25cm tall. Basal leaves rosetted, oblong to oblanceolate, 5-30mm long, with a few smaller ovate sessile pairs subtending the branches and pedicels. Inflorescences consist of a series of one to five flowered cymes. Flowers erect, mauvey-white to bluey-violet or purple, 1-2.2cm long with ovatelanceolate spreading lobes about as long as the tube, summer to autumn in the wild. Argentina and Chile from Tierra del Fuego northwards along the Andes to the central southern cordilleras, also the Falklands, in damp grassy places from sea-level to 2200m depending upon the latitude. Some authorities still apparently recognise the large-flowered variants from the extreme north of the range in Chile as G. pearcei (Gentiana), and also a separate pale-flowered, short-pedicelled plant from the Valdivian coastal range as G. lactea (Gentiana). Another 'species' G. valdiviana (Gentiana), also from Valdivia, Chile, has been split off on the basis of its very acute calyx lobes.

G. mandonii] (syn. Gentiana mandonii Gilg). Thickly tap-rooted perennial bearing dense persistent tufted rosettes and flowering stems 7-12cm tall. Rosette leaves oblanceolate, 3cm by 4mm, tapering to a pseudopetiole. Stem leaves few, less than half the size, sessile, more acute. Flowers singly from the upper leaf axils, 2cm long, upright, on pedicels 2-3cm long, described as looking white when closed, but the rounded open lobes displaying ruby-red or purple faces. Bolivia, the Sorata region in pastures at 3760-3800m.