Wild Florida Photo - Gentiana pennelliana

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Gentiana pennelliana

WIREGRASS GENTIAN

Florida native

Endemic to Florida

Endangered Florida species

 

A small rare plant of flatwoods and savannas in the central Florida panhandle from Leon and Franklin Counties to Bay County, plus Walton County. Often found with wiregrass and other gentians.
The solitary white flowers are terminal with five lobes that are shorter than the tube which is plaited with tooth-like or fringed appendages between the lobes. Wiregrass gentian blooms in the winter, typically January. Plants rarely reach 30 cm (12 in') tall, flowers are 4 - 6 cm (1-1/2 to 2-1/2 in.) long, and the opposite linear or narrowly elliptic leaves are about 3 cm (1-1/4 in.) long. The lower leaves are reduced in size.
Four members of the genus Gentiana occur in Florida, all in the northern part of the state. G. pennelliana is the only one of these species endemic to the state and the only one with single flowers. The other three species of Gentiana have clusters of flowers, bloom in the fall and range throughout the southeast United States.

 
Gentiana pennelliana is a member of the Gentianaceae - Gentian family.
 

Florida Wildflowers in Their Natural Communities

  Walter Kingsley Taylor
Walter Taylor's guide will help readers recognize and identify wildflowers by where they're most likely to be found growing - their natural habitat.

This book is the first of its kind for Florida. Taylor provides detailed descriptions and color photos of each community - pine flatwoods, sandhills, upland pine forest, scrub, temperate hardwood forest, coastal uplands, subtropical pine forest, tropical hardwood hammock, and ruderal sites - and of the wildflower species associated with each.
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Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (Institute for Systemic Botany) profile for this species

USDA Plant Profile for this species

Date record last modified:
Jan 26, 2009