Gentiana argentea (D. Don) Grisebach var. albescens Franchet.

Annuals 2-8 cm tall. Stems erect, lower half simple and leafless, upper half much branched with short internodes, and apically with many leaves and flowering branches crowded into a capitulum, angled, densely puberulent. Leaves overlapping, crowded; petiole tube 1-1.5 mm; leaf blade abaxially densely and minutely papillate, adaxially glabrous, base narrowed to obtuse, margin ca. 0.7 mm wide, membranous, and densely ciliolate, apex obtuse to rounded and cuspidate, midvein crested. Lower leaf blades ovate-lanceolate to ovate, 1-1.5 cm × 4-7 mm. Upper leaf blades oblanceolate, oblong, or narrowly elliptic, 7-9 × 3-4 mm. Flowers many, subsessile. Calyx campanulate, 7-8.5 mm; lobes ovate-elliptic, 3-4 mm, margin membranous, ca. 0.7 mm wide, and ciliolate, apex obtuse and cuspidate, midvein crested. Corolla pale blue-purple, broadly tubular, 8-9 mm; lobes ovate, 0.7-1 mm, margin entire, apex obtuse; plicae ovate, 0.5-0.8 mm, margin entire, apex obtuse. Stamens inserted at basal part of corolla tube, equal; filaments 2-2.5 mm; anthers narrowly ellipsoid, 1-1.2 mm. Style 0.5-0.8 mm; stigma lobes oblong. Capsules narrowly obovoid, 4-4.5 mm; gynophore 1-1.5 mm, stout. Seeds dark brown, ellipsoid, 0.5-0.7 mm. Fl. and fr. Apr-May.

* Grasslands; 1900-3300 m. NW Yunnan.