Gentiana verna

The Spring Gentian, known as Gentiana verna in Latin, is a mountainous perennial plant that is quite common in nature, but quite difficult to acclimatise in the garden like many high-altitude plants that require quite specific growing conditions.  It blooms from spring to early summer depending on the altitude and climate, with its small flowers of an electric blue emerging near the ground from a tuft of grass. It is a botanical species that prefers rather dry limestone or sandy soils, and dislikes heatwaves and stifling summers. Easy to grow in a mountain garden, it will also thrive in an alpine rockery or above a wall. 

The Spring Gentian, part of the Gentianaceae family, is a species native to the mountain ranges of Europe and Asia. It can be found from Ireland to Russia, passing through the High Atlas in Morocco, as well as the mountains of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. It thrives there in limestone or sandy soils, poor and well-drained, in a humid atmosphere.

As a perennial plant with a short and grassy appearance, it consists mainly of basal leaves, in rosettes, ovate to lanceolate and vivid green, which disappear in winter and emerge from the ground in spring. At maturity, the plant reaches an average height of 10cm (4in) with a spread of 20cm (8in), depending on the growing conditions. The sparsely leafy floral stems emerge from March to July-August depending on the climate. At the tip of each stem, a vertical flower, funnel-shaped, measuring 3 to 4cm (1 to 2in) in height blooms. Fused at the base, the angular corolla widens into 5 well-defined lobes, with an oval-obtuse shape. The colour of the flower is an intense blue, sometimes purple or more rarely a slightly bluish white. The exterior is tinted with green and purple. This flowering attracts pollinating insects. The seeds of this gentian are dispersed by ants, ensuring its spread.  

As is the case with most alpine plants, the Spring Gentian will be easy to grow as long as the growing conditions suit it. This mountain plant does not appreciate overly hot climates or heavy, acidic, and/or poorly drained soils. In the ground, it is ideally placed in a soil rich in limestone rocks, well-drained, not too dry, on a wall, in a rockery, on a slope, on the edge of borders, or in a trough, in a mountain garden. It prefers rocky, sunny spaces that are not too hot, or semi-shaded, where it can root deeply. This Gentian can be combined, in a flower bed or rockery, with Snowdrops, Botanical Tulips, crocuses, Lewisia, Edelweiss, pasqueflowers....

The term Gentiana refers to Gentius, king of Illyria (modern-day Albania) in the 2nd century BC who, according to Pliny the Elder, discovered the medicinal and healing properties of the root of the Yellow Gentian.