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Five-Flowered Gentian

Gentiana quinqueflora. Gentian Family.

Stem.--Slender; usually branching; one or two feet high. Leaves.--Opposite; ovate; lance-shaped; partly clasping. Flowers.--Pale blue or purplish; smaller than those of the closed gentian; in clusters of five or more at the summit of stems and branches. Calyx.--Four or five--cleft; small. Corolla.--Funnel--form; four or five--lobed; its lobes bristle--pointed. Stamens.--Four or five. Pistil.--One, with two stigmas. In some localities the five--flowered gentian is very abundant. Gray assigns the plant to "moist hills" and "along the mountains to Florida;" and I never remember to have encountered it save in more or less mountainous regions. In September it tinges with delicate color the slopes of the Shawangunk mountains and borders the woods and roadsides of the Berkshire hills.