Gentianella amarella Autumn Gentian

An attractive, biennial gentian with mauve or dull blueish-purple, tubular flowers that usually have 5 petals (sometimes 4), which grows up to about 20cm tall but often shorter. It is a plant of calcareous grassland, dunes, quarries, gravelly tracks and occasionally forest roads. Flowers usually appear in August and tend to close up in the afternoon, especially under dull conditions. Although widespread on chalk and limestone in Britain it has disappeared from many of its former sites as a result of habitat loss and changes in management and its overall status can be described as locally common at best. In West Glamorgan it is virtually confined to coastal limestone grasslands in Gower but a population discovered by CH and Hilary Hipkin in a grassy verge along a forest road dressed with limestone gravel in 2013 has persisted for at least 14 years, with usually between 100 and 300 flowering plants each year. Such populations probably have a long-persistent seed bank. As far as we can tell all plants in Gower grasslands and along forest roads are Gentianella amarella subsp. amarella.

Native