Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Prairie rose-gentian

PRAIRIE ROSE-GENTIAN

File Size: 98 KB

Sabatia campestris Nutt.

Cherokee County, Kansas

Annual

Height: 2.4 to 20 inches

Family: Gentianaceae - Gentian Family

Flowering Period: June, July, August

Stems:

Erect, 4-angled or narrowly winged, glabrous.

Leaves:

Cauline, opposite, clasping, simple; blade ovate to lanceolate, .2 to 1 inch long, .12 to .6 inch wide, margins entire; lower leaves often smaller.

Inflorescences:

Loosely arranged cymes forming corymbose-like cluster, terminal; branches mostly alternate. Pedicels (.4).8 to 4 inches.

Flowers:

Radially symmetric; calyx tube campanulate, distinctly wing-angled, .12 to .3 inch, lobes 5, linear, .24 to 1 inch; corolla pink, rarely white, throat yellow and white, tube .16 to .4 inch, 5-lobed, lobes obovate, .4 to 1 inch long, apex acute; stamens 5, distinct; anthers bright yellow, sprially coiled after anthesis; pistil 1; style 1; stigma 2-lobed.

Fruits:

Capsules, broadly ellipsoid, .3 to .43 inch. Seeds gray, tiny.

Habitat:

Roadside ditches, prairies, moist limestone soil

Distribution:

Southeast 1/4 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Sabatia, for Liberatus Sabbati, Italian botanist, and campestris, of the plains.

Prairie rose-gentian