Gentiana leucomelaena - Blue-Dotted Gentian

Blue-Dotted Gentian is an annual herb 2-10 cm tall. Flowers are few, pale blue, rarely white, with blue-gray stripes, with dark blue spots in throat, bell-shaped, 0.8-1.3 cm, petals ovate, 2.5-3 mm, tip blunt, flase-petals are oblong, 1.2-1.5 mm, margin irregularly cut, tip blunt. Stamens remain inside the basal part of flower tube, equal. Sepal cup is bell-shaped, 4-5 mm, sepals triangular, 1.5-2 mm, margin narrowly membranous, tip pointed. Stems are prostrate to ascending, branched from base, hairless. Basal leaves are withered at anthesis, leaf-stalk 1-2 mm. Leaves are ovate-elliptic to ovate-orbicular, 5-8 × 2-3 mm, margin indistinctly membranous, tip blunt to rounded, veins 1-3, indistinct. Stem leaves are 3-5 pairs, lanceshaped to elliptic, rarely basally spoon-shaped to ovate, 3-9 × 0.7-2 mm, usually shorter than internodes, margin narrowly and indistinctly membranous, apex long-pointed to blunt. Capsules are obovoid, 3.5-5 mm. Blue-Dotted Gentian is found in Kashmir, Ladakh, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, N Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Sikkim, Tajikistan and China, at altitudes of 1900-5000 m. Flowering: May-October.