Gentiana asclepiadea

Gentiana asclepiadea is a stemless perennial herbaceous plant of medium size, an emblem of the Alps. It is regarded as a botanical jewel due to its incredible summer flowering in beautiful intense blue trumpets.

Gentiana asclepiadea belongs to the Gentianaceae family, which includes no less than 400 species, including its famous cousin the stemless gentian, with which it shares its rosette foliage and trumpet-shaped flowering of an unforgettable and incredible colour. However, Gentiana asclepiadea occupies larger mountainous areas (woods, meadows, and pastures) that cover southern and central Europe. It finds there the necessary conditions for its subsistence: very light shade, as it fears the cold, and soil that is at once permeable, moist, and humus-bearing. This perennial is therefore a little demanding. To guarantee and succeed in its cultivation, which requires patience, you will need to ensure the quality of the soil beforehand, even if it means amending it, as well as choosing a suitable exposure, and protecting it from its enemies (snails and slugs).

Another difference from the stemless gentian is its size! While the former is low-growing and mat-forming, the latter is tall. It forms an upright clump that can reach 50 cm (20in)! It can thus constitute an interesting structural plant in the background or at the heart of a flower bed. It also has long and sturdy stems that bear lanceolate matte green leaves with 5 veins arranged in a rosette. Gentiana asclepiadea also makes a precious accent plant. Its flowering, which occurs in July, August, September and sometimes October, is distinguished not only by its blue colour but also by the complexity and feminine delicacy of its flower, about 4 cm (2in) in size, with a tubular bell-shaped corolla, naked and pleated at the throat, which can appear in pairs in the axil of the foliage.

We recommend combining Gentiana asclepiadea with shrubs, perennials, and grasses in cold and dark-colours, to create contrast and make its blue colour resonate. Position a Virginia sweetspire 'Henry’s garnett' as a backdrop for its graceful and fragrant white flowering, and as a first white layer add small ferns, sedges, brunnera, and heuchera, as well as a few clumps of ophiopogon. It should be noted that gentian blue is used in microbiology, along with Zhiel's fuchsin, to differentiate bacteria based on their reaction to these two dyes. This usage, due to Koch (the father, along with Pasteur, of our modern vaccines) gave its name to the most famous of its cousins: Koch's gentian.