Seaside or arctic serrate gentian, salt-ensian

Gentiana detonsa Rottbøll var. groenlandica Victorin; G. richardsonii A. E. Porsild

Herbs 0.2–2 dm. Stems simple or those of larger plants with branches or peduncles arising from base. Leaf blades: basal oblanceolate, apex obtuse to acute; cauline leaves linear, apex usually acute, occasionally absent. Flowers: outer calyx lobes distinctly longer than inner, apex acuminate, inner ovate to lanceolate, apex acute to short-acuminate; corolla 12–36 mm, lobes oblong-triangular, 0.5+ times as long as tube, margins dentate, not fringed, narrowed apically, apex ± acute; gynophore short, thick. Seed coat papillate only toward ends. 2n = 78 (Iceland).

Flowering summer. Wet seaside meadows, brackish mudflats, north of tree line; 0–10 m; Greenland; N.W.T., Nunavut; Alaska; Eurasia (arctic regions).

The corolla lobes of subsp. detonsa and subsp. yukonensis are proportionately narrower than those of the other Gentianopsis taxa in the flora area and taper to a more nearly acute apex than those of any other taxa except G. macrantha.

Plants from arctic Canada and Greenland do not ap­pear to be separable from those from Iceland, the prov­enance of the type, nor from plants from Norway. If representatives of Gentianopsis detonsa in any other part of continental Europe are considered taxonomi­cally separable, subsp. detonsa in the flora area is appro­priately retained in the autonymic subspecies.