Naturally Speaking: Bottle gentian

The blooms of bottle gentian remain closed to pollinators and the world. Some bumblebees are persistent enough, however, to pry open the petals and partially enter to obtain fragrant nectar before leaving for another flower.

Either the beautiful blue bloom, or flower’s shape, or this intrigue has been sufficient to entice poets to compose about the plant’s reproductive process.

Photographers, too, have lined up to shoot at these bottles, but like the bumblebees, they often find it difficult to position for a smashing image.

In addition, the plant’s vegetative parts have little to compliment the blue bottle blooms.

In addition to poets, some botanists are not pained at describing the flowers. “Curiously, its deep blue, barrel-shaped blossoms appear to lack an outside opening, yet larger bees and bumblebees at the cost of considerable effort are able to shoulder the front half of their bodies inside (they never enter completely), enticed by nectar and translucent white patches at the bottom of the corolla,” a prairie botanist wrote.