#gentian

[tanuki-kimono]

Regal antique kimono with gracefully long sleeves, showing colorful tachibana (a type of citrus) and sasarindô (gentian).

I love how the vibrant magenta ground echoes with the light blue piercing through clouds.

[thiswillnotdo]

2024_02_29

[darksunradiance]

Rivals Attendants of the Divine Crusade 🗡️📔🍷

[bethanythebogwitch]

Native Wildflowers collection

Native wildflowers from my previous job. All pics by me. Not an exhaustive list. Split into multiple posts due to the image limit.

Starting off with everyone's (read: monarch butterflies') favorite: milkweed. Common milkweed is on the left. I think what we called common milkweed was actually 2 closely-related species. On the right is swam milkweed, which likes wetter soil. Butterfly weed in the bottom is a milkweed, but its sap is clear instead of white so some people don't realize that. It's also much shorter than most milkweeds.

We have 2 main gentian species. These flowers don't open all the way and only larger insects like bees can force their way in. These bees then seek out gentians as an exclusive food source, making it more likely for them to pollinate the gentians. Cream gentian (left) is white and can get very tall on good years. Bottle gentian (right) is a small, low-lying plant that hides under other plants. This picture was taken early in the season so they're pretty pale. They turn bright blue when they're in bloom.

Yellow (left) and purple (right) coneflower

Mountain mint (right) and downy wood mint (left)

Wild raspberry (left) and dewberry (right). My personal nemeses when I was moving through the prairie. Thorns are not my friend

Foxglove beardtongue, which comes in a common white color (right) and a rarer purple variant (left). Below is false foxglove, which is a hemiparasite (plant that gains nutrition through parasitism and photosynthesis) that leaches off of oak roots

Bee balm, this one has a lot of ornamental cultivars

Rattlesnake master, a badass name for a weird and spiky plant

Ironweed. We have a few species and I don't know how to tell them apart

Wild quinine. In the 3 growth seasons I worked here, this one became much more common.

Prairie coreopsis (left) and tall coreopsis (right). Guess what the difference between these two is

Rosinweed (left) and cup plant (right). Two closely related species.

Maryland senna (left) and partridge pea (right). Similar (but not closely related) species that grow pods full of seeds. As they dry, the pods peel open and send the seeds flying out.

Prairie dock. These grow very tall and have huge leaves that are cool because the roots bring up water from deep underground

Ashy sunflower, a hemiparasite that kills goldenrod and tall grasses. As those two are very aggressive plants that can take over whole fields. ashy sunflower seeds are a great way to fight back against them and help increase biodiversity.

Cardinal flower. This one is endangered so its great that it's doing well and even spreading where I worked.

Common thistle. This one is unfortunately losing ground to invasive Canada thistle (not actually from Canada) and isn't very popular, but bugs love it.

Black-eyed Susan (left) and sweet black-eyed Susan (right). The latter is larger and doesn't tolerate shade as well.

Continued in part 2

[awakeningthevioletswithin]

Blue Bottles

Watercolor on Black Paper

2023, 11"x 14"

Bottle Gentian, Gentiana andrewsii

[poem-today]

A poem by Emily Dickinson

The Gentian Weaves her Fringes

The Gentian weaves her fringes— The Maple's loom is red— My departing blossoms     Obviate parade.

A brief, but patient illness— An hour to prepare, And one below this morning Is where the angels are— It was a short procession, The Bobolink was there— An aged Bee addressed us— And then we knelt in prayer— We trust that she was willing— We ask that we may be. Summer—Sister—Seraph! Let us go with thee!

In the name of the Bee— And of the Butterfly— And of the Breeze—Amen!

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[adventurealldays]

[gyorslab]

Today on artfight: Attacked @emowithafather’s Ophelia and revenged @butterfrogmantis’s Wrangler Smurf, @gwinverarrouz’s Gentian, and rashoumonhiganzakura’s Ajax

[christopherflowers]

Mountain Gentian

[foliorumviridis]

Gentiana asclepiadea

[thelethalsilence]

[petirrojo57]

Fans of MDZS know about gentians as Mama Lan’s favorite flowers, but do they know how cool and varied gentians are? These are cream gentians, a less common variation of the blue gentians found in North American prairies. The tight tubes of the flowers are different than Asian varieties; they’re generally pollinated by chunky bumblebees with the build to muscle their way into the flowers. These were in bloom this weekend out at Fermilab’s prairie

[gwinverarrouz]

Artfight attack for @drawotion of the lovely Napnap (also featuring my OC Gentian because they would absolutely be a client of his shop, haha)

The initial sketch looked a bit different and I'm glad I changed it, it's got more personality this way :D

[flowerbarrel-art]

Purple got a good grade on a test so they all went out to get ice cream.

Purple got pistachio, Orchid got toffee and RB got double chocolate.

I’m not sure at the moment but I kinda want to call Orchid “Peony” and RB “Gentian”. And I want to go along with DJ and say that Gentian is Purple’s mom and Peony is his dad. It used to be that pink was a boy’s color and blue was for girls.

[fieriframes]

[Gentian.]