Balsam Mountain gentian

Gentiana saponaria Linnaeus var. latidens House, Muhlenbergia 6: 75. 1910

Herbs perennial, 2–10 dm, glabrous, rarely puberulent on stems and calyx tubes. Stems 6–100+, terminal from caudex, erect or decumbent. Leaves cau­line, ± evenly spaced; blade ovate, 3–15 cm × 10–55 mm, apex acuminate. Inflo­rescences 1–20-flowered heads, sometimes with addi­tional flowers at 1–3 nodes. Flowers: calyx 15–35(–45) mm, lobes spreading nearly horizontally when fresh, obovate, elliptic, ovate, orbiculate, or rhombic, 3–25(–35) mm, often strongly unequal, mar­gins ciliate; corolla blue, ± loosely closed, 30–55 mm, lobes ± incurved to nearly erect, ovate-triangular, 2.5–5 mm, free portions of plicae ± as long and wide as lobes, oblong, deeply and unequally bifid, summit erose; anthers connate. Seeds winged.

Flowering late summer–fall. Moist to wet rocky slopes, roadsides, acid soils; of conservation concern; 1300–1700 m; N.C.

Gentiana latidens is known only from the Plott Balsam and Great Balsam mountains and Pisgah Ridge in Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Transylvania coun­ties, and perhaps also in Clay County.