Gentiana arctophila Grisebach; G. propinqua Richardson subsp. arctophila (Grisebach) Hultén; Gentianella propinqua subsp. arctophila (Grisebach) Tzvelev

Herbs 2–25(–40) cm. Cauline leaf blades narrowly elliptic to lanceolate. Inflorescences dichasial cymes; pedicels 0–30 mm. Flowers: central distinctly larger than lateral; corolla blue-violet or occasionally white, those of central flowers 12–22 mm, lobe apices long-acuminate or abruptly tapering to mucronate or bristle-tipped or occasionally obtuse. 2n = 36.

Flowering summer–early fall. Beaches, stream banks, borders of bogs and muskeg, moist alpine and montane meadows, thickets, tundra, roadsides, clearings, other gravelly disturbed sites; 0–3000 m; Alta., B.C., Man., Nfld. and Labr., N.W.T., Nunavut, Ont., Que., Yukon; Alaska, Idaho, Mont., Wyo., restricted to higher eleva­tions southward; Asia (ne Siberia).

Plants of subsp. propinqua with obtuse corolla lobes, to which the epithet arctophila has been applied, occur in the same populations throughout much of the range of the species as plants with bristle-tipped corolla lobes and plants intermediate in this respect. Branched and small, unbranched plants likewise occur within the same populations (J. M. Gillett 1957). From specimens now available, the character states alleged by E. Scamman (1940) to divide Gentianella propinqua in mainland Alaska into two groups, most readily distinguished by plant size and anthocyanin concentration in the leaves and stems, appear neither well marked nor consistently associated in syndromes.