THE BULGARIAN FLORA ONLINE

Gentiana frigida

Frigid Gentian

Pictures of Gentiana frigida

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Common name

Frigid Gentian

Scientific name

Gentiana frigida Haenke

Conservation status and threats

The species is PROTECTED in Bulgaria by the Biodiversity Act - it is prohibited to "picking, collecting, cutting, uprooting or any other manner of destruction of specimens in their natural range in the wild", as well as "possession, keeping, movement, transport, export, trade and offering for sale or exchange of specimens taken in the wild". These bans apply to "all stages of life of the plants"¹.

Listed in the Red Data Book of Bulgaria to the category "Endangered"².

Threats

Tourism, collection of the plants for its decorative features³.

Description and identification

Gentiana frigida is a perennial herbaceous plant with short rhizome.

Stems 1–7 cm, at base with a sheath of leaf-remnants from the previous year.

Leaves linear-lanceolate, acute, sessile of very shortly pedunculate.

Flowers 2–3, yellowish white with blue stripes and with bluish spots in the throat, in a terminal inflorescence.

Capsule elliptical-lanceolate, dehiscent.

Flowering July-August⁴.

Habitat

Occurs in open herbaceous communities on silicate in the alpine belt, on northern and northwestern slopes, on shallow soil. The population in Rila Mts has a low number of individuals⁵.

Dstribution in Bulgaria

Western Balkan Mountains, Rila and Pirin; between 2400 and 2900 m altitude⁶.

General dstribution

Map of general distribution⁷ (in green):

References

1 Bulgarian Biodiversity Act in english.

2 Dimitar Dimitrov. 2015. In: Red Data Book of the Republic of Bulgaria. Volume 1 - Plants & Fungi.

3 Dimitar Dimitrov. 2015.

4 Dimitar Dimitrov. 2015.

5 Dimitar Dimitrov. 2015.

6 Стоянов, Н. & Б. Китанов. 1966. Високопланинските растения в България. Изд. „Наука и изкуство“. София.

7 Gentiana frigida Haenke | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science.