Slender biennial with lilac-blue flowers of four petals and a fringed throat in short old grassland late in the year
Field gentian, Gentianella campestris.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Field gentian
Native biennial · flowers late summer–autumn · short, old, unimproved grassland
Gentianella campestris — Gentianaceae
Field gentian is a slender biennial with lilac-blue, four-lobed flowers, a plant of short, old, unimproved grassland, mostly in the north and west of Britain and now much declined. Plantlife lists it as Endangered and uses it as a marker of irreplaceable species-rich grassland. The four petals separate it from its close relative, the autumn gentian, which has five.
How to spot them
- ▸Flowers with four (not five) lilac-blue or dull purple lobes, about 1.5–2 cm long, with a fringe of hairs in the throat
- ▸Calyx of four lobes, the outer two much larger than the inner two and overlapping them
- ▸Slender, branched stems 5–25 cm tall, with narrow, pointed leaves in opposite pairs
- ▸Grows in short, unimproved acidic to neutral grassland, dunes and machair, mostly in the north and west
- ▸Look-alike: autumn gentian, Gentianella amarella, has five petal lobes, a five-lobed calyx with equal lobes and tends to grow on chalk; field gentian has four petals and is the more northern, acid-grassland species
How to know it
Plantlife's 2025 grassland briefing cites this as an 'Endangered' example of the rare species that mark irreplaceable habitat
Field gentian.
Count the petal lobes: four in this species, five in the closely related autumn gentian of chalk grassland
The relative is autumn gentian; this is field gentian.
The specific name means 'of the fields', though today it survives mainly in ancient, unfertilised grassland and on northern machair
Gentianella campestris — field gentian.
A biennial, it makes leaves in its first year and flowers and dies in its second, so it relies on gaps in the turf for seedlings
Field gentian.
The family is named after Gentius, a king of ancient Illyria said to have discovered the medicinal value of the roots
Gentianaceae — includes field gentian.
Quick-fire facts
- •Native biennial of unimproved grassland, dunes and machair, most frequent in the north and west; Plantlife says it is 'Endangered' (briefing, May 2025)
- •Flowers with four petal lobes; the autumn gentian (Gentianella amarella) has five
- •Family Gentianaceae; Gentianella means 'little gentian'
- •Not on Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, though the related early gentian (Gentianella anglica) is, along with alpine, dune, fringed and spring gentians (GOV.UK)
- •Lost from many lowland sites by fertiliser use, ploughing and lack of grazing
- •Needs bare patches in short turf for its seedlings, which grazing maintains
- •Gentians were used in medicine; Gentius, king of Illyria, is credited with discovering their value
- •Sits alongside fritillary and green-winged orchid among the wildflowers of the priority-habitat meadows named by Plantlife
Drill it — 7 cards
1 / 7new card