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Portrait of Spring gentian

Nature · Wildflowers & flowers

Spring gentian

Native · flowers Apr–early Jun · sugar limestone grassland, Upper Teesdale only

Gentiana verna — Gentianaceae

The spring gentian is a tiny plant with a flower of astonishing sky-blue, found in Britain only in Upper Teesdale, County Durham and Cumbria, and in western Ireland, in the Burren. It is the iconic plant of the Teesdale Assemblage, a group of Ice Age relict mountain plants, and it is protected under Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is the county flower of Durham.

How to spot them

  • ▸Intense, deep sky-blue flowers about 1.5–2 cm across, with five spreading, pointed lobes and a narrow tube, on a plant only a few centimetres tall
  • ▸A rosette of small, pointed, oval leaves at the base; flowers borne singly on short stems
  • ▸Petals close in dull weather, leaving only dark-blue spikes, and reopen when the sun comes out
  • ▸Grows in short turf on the 'sugar limestone' of Upper Teesdale, in the North Pennines
  • ▸Look-alikes: alpine gentian, Gentiana nivalis — a small annual with smaller, paler blue flowers, on Scottish mountains; and milkworts and speedwells, which are not trumpet-shaped

How to know it

Intense sky-blue flowers on a plant a few centimetres tall, growing in short turf on sugar limestone in County Durham and closing in dull weather

Spring gentian, Gentiana verna.

In Britain it occurs only in Upper Teesdale, and across the Irish Sea in the Burren in County Clare

Spring gentian.

The iconic plant of the Teesdale Assemblage, a group of arctic-alpine relicts that survived the ice

Spring gentian — first found in Teesdale in 1796.

Chosen as the county flower of Durham in Plantlife's 2002 public vote

Spring gentian.

Included on Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, so that picking or uprooting it is an offence

Spring gentian — Schedule 8; section 13.

Best seen on warm, bright days from April to early June, along the Cow Green nature trail on the Moor House–Upper Teesdale reserve

Spring gentian.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Native perennial, restricted in Britain to Upper Teesdale (Durham and Cumbria); also found in western Ireland (the Burren)
  • •A sun-worshipper: the flowers close in dull weather and open again when the sun returns (North Pennines National Landscape)
  • •Flowers April to early June; one of the easiest places to see it is Natural England's Moor House–Upper Teesdale NNR nature trail near Cow Green Reservoir
  • •First found in Teesdale in 1796, according to the North Pennines National Landscape
  • •Listed in Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 alongside alpine, dune, fringed and early gentians (GOV.UK)
  • •County flower of Durham, chosen in Plantlife's 2002 county flowers campaign
  • •The Moor House–Upper Teesdale Special Area of Conservation is described by JNCC as one of the most important arctic-alpine refugia in the UK; rare relatives include Teesdale sandwort and Scottish asphodel
  • •Family Gentianaceae; gentians are named after Gentius, king of Illyria, who is said to have used gentian roots as a medicine

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