Narrow-leaved or bog gentian, gentiane à feuilles linéaires

Herbs perennial, 1–9 dm, glabrous. Stems 1–30, terminal from caudex, erect. Leaves cauline, nearly evenly spaced or somewhat more widely spaced distally; blade linear to lance­olate, 4–9 cm × 3–14 mm, apex acute. Inflorescences ± dense 1–7-flowered cymes, sometimes with additional flowers at 1–4 nodes, sessile or on branches to 12 cm. Flowers: calyx 8–28 mm, lobes linear to oblong, 2–12(–15) mm, margins not ciliate; corolla blue or occasionally violet or white, tubular, loosely closed or slightly open, 25–50 mm, lobes ± incurved, semicircular, 2.5–5 mm, free portions of plicae obliquely triangular, margins entire or shallowly erose, with a minute, deflexed second segment; anthers connate. Seeds winged. 2n = 26.

Flowering late summer–fall. Bogs, wet meadows, shores, generally strongly acid soils; 0–2000 m; N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Labr.), Ont., Que.; Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., N.H., N.Y., Pa., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Gentiana linearis is extirpated from New Jersey. Reports from Manitoba and Minnesota have been based on circumscriptions of G. linearis that included G. rubricaulis, mostly prior to the recognition of G. rubricaulis as a distinct species in standard floras. A report from North Carolina is incorrect, having been based on a misunderstanding as to where a photograph was taken (W. F. Hutson, pers. comm.). Narrow-leaved specimens of G. saponaria are occasionally misidentified as G. linearis but can be distinguished by their ciliate calyx lobes and by the shape of the calyx lobes and the free portions of the corolla plicae.