Fall 1998

[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB- PUBLISHED MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: FALL 1998.]

Prairie Gentian: Blue Blossom Medicine

By Patricia K. Armstrong

A walk in late fall through the bronzed prairie may bring a special delight if you are lucky. There at your feet you may spot bits of blue sky fallen among the wine-red little bluestem and browning dock. Gentiana puberulenta, the prairie gentian, blooms from August to October and can survive nightime temperatures of 12°F.

Gentians are named for King Gentius of Illyria (northwest of ancient Greece) who supposedly discovered the medicinal properties of gentians in the old world. Native peoples in the new world also knew these properties. Prairie gentian is called "Pezhuta-zi" by the Dakota people, which means yellow medicine, a reference to the color of the roots used to make tonics to help digestion. The Winnebago call it "Makan chahiwi-cho" which means blue blossom medicine.

There are seven gentians native to the Chicago region. Prairie gentian has the largest flowers and the deepest, richest color. It grows 8 to 20 inches tall in dry to mesic prairies.

Six different species of bumblebees have been observed pollinating prairie gentians, and the larva of two moths are known to feed on them as well. One is a tiny 1/8 to 1/4 inch long green caterpillar with rusty chevrons and the other is a black and gray banded wooly bear type. Tiny winged seeds develop in the two-parted capsule and are spread by the wind in late October and November.

To propagate gentians, sow their seeds immediately in the prairie under the shaded edges of other plants like little bluestem or June grass. They can also be sown in raised beds of rich, moist soil, mulched with some curled, dry oak leaves or evergreen boughs and covered with mesh netting. They germinate when March nights reach 35° to 40°F and days are warmer. Mist them through the netting and transplant the seedlings out during their third year.

Gentians, as a group, are not especially common although in proper habitats large populations may occur. Fringed and stiff gentians are biennial so their flowering is erratic and inconsistent. Prairie gentians, however, are perennial and grow only in the deep soils of mesic or dry prairies. Since these plants and their habitats are rare in the Chicago Wilderness, it is important to protect them and try to increase gentian populations in restoration areas by seed dispersal and nursery-grown plants.

Gentians are creatures of the sunshine. They close their flowers at night or when it is cloudy by an intricate, spiral folding which is a wonder to behold. Bumblebees and butterflies often sleep folded in the flowers on cold nights.

So lovely are these flowers and so rich their color that many have been moved to capture them in verse, including these below by poet William Cullen Bryant.

Thou waitest long, and com'st alone
When woods are bare and birds have flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.
Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue — blue — as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.