Gentiana
L.Annual, or biennial or (not in Australia) short-lived perennial herbs. Leaves usually keeled, margins moderately thick, ± cartilaginous; cauline leaves similar to but smaller than the rosette leaves. Flowers solitary, terminal; generally opening only in direct sunlight. Flowers (4- or) 5-merous. Calyx tube narrowly funnel-shaped, longer than lobes; lobes triangular-ovate, connected by intersepaline membranes; persistent in fruit. Corolla ± campanulate; tube shortly cylindrical; lobes ± spreading, 3-veined; plicae (smaller folded lobes between the major lobes) present, persistent in fruit. Stamens 5, enclosed in corolla tube, equal; filaments basally fused to lower half of corolla tube; anthers basifixed. Nectaries at base of ovary, poorly developed. Ovary abruptly contracted at apex; ovules few to numerous; style absent or very short; stigmas persistent, papillose; gynophore absent to prominent in fruit. Capsule variously shaped, ± flattened, ± exserted from persistent perianth. Seeds few to numerous, reticulate-striolate.
A genus of some 200–400 species (depending on generic circumscription), almost cosmopolitan, chiefly alpine; represented in Australia by 3 or 4 endemic species, all members of sect. Chondrophyllae Bunge. In Victoria, represented by 1 species.
Spinning