Spring Gentian is a very small perennial. The flowers have five petals and are a vivid blue. The leaves grow mainly in a rosette. The rootstock throws up several flowering stems, making the flowers grow close together.
As Spring Gentian is a mountain plant over much of Europe it is exciting to find it at a low altitude in west Clare, on short turf over limestone. It is the most famous flower of the Burren, and is also found in Galway and parts of Mayo.
The plant was first recorded here in 1650. It had been found growing between Gort and Galway by Richard Heaton, a Yorkshire-born parson and a keen botanist. It is cultivated in gardens in the form 'Angulosa'.
Flowering time is from April to June.
Spring Gentian grows in Britain only in Teesdale, in the north Pennines, where there is grass on limestone, and in central and southern Europe as far as the Caucasus, mainly on the higher mountains.