Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Plant Identification => Plant Identification Questions and Answers => Topic started by: David Nicholson on November 16, 2015, 10:24:05 PM
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A friend of mine has a red flowered Gentian in flower in his garden. He was given the plant and has never had a label and he knows nothing about the plant. Can anyone tell me what it might be please?
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Hello David, I'm slowly putting together a collection of Gentians, but haven't come across a red one yet. I do have a couple of seedlings of Gentiana purpurea. Some of the photos of this species on the web might be described as wine red.
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David,
I have a batch of Gentiana purpurea coming on (thanks to a generous forumist! :) ). As Gordon mentioned, my understanding is that some plants can be wine red. From the photographs of this species I have seen, it seems fairly distinct, so perhaps easy to identify.
Maybe your friend will let you photograph the plant or they can photograph it?
We have many highly talented forumist that I am sure will be able to identify it.
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Seems the likeliest suspect would be one of the dark pink G. scabra? hybrids they sell at garden centers and supermarkets in autumn?
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Could it be refered to as a red gentian because it's family Gentianaceae and not genus Gentiana at all?
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Jamus ,, there are at least 2 species red flowered gentians that grow in the Andes : G. sedifolia and hirculus . I raised G. hirculus many years ago from collected seed but it proved to be monocarpic . ,so I guess they belong to the genus Gentianella .
the Viola species you posted a week or two ago is V. cornuta .
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Ah thank you Otto, what you're saying without actually saying it is that I'm right! :) Gentianella are very beautiful, I've been googling them and some are very desirable plants.
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I don't know of any red flower Gentiana sp., except if we consider G. purpurea, which is a deep red-wine. Even hybrids and cv. of Gentiana scabra are pink towards magenta at best. I would very much like to see a red Gentiana :)
Most Gentianella spp. are also pink, in various degrees, or mauve. Gentiana sedifolia, with all due respect is not red and hirculus is indeed a Gentianella (and not red either).
I think without a picture we are just talking about a 'phantom' Gentiana that it may not be a Gentiana - and this thread probably belongs better to plants ID.
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Weren't there some pictures on the Forum a few years back of a red Gentian? I think it was a hybrid between purpurea and another which I can't remember.
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Cliff has a reddish G. purpurea here : http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=8869.msg252810#msg252810 (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=8869.msg252810#msg252810)
And from this post from Luit - about reddish gentians shown to the KAVB at Lisse, there are other posts with links to posts re red /reddih ornage gentians... http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=1315.msg314801#msg314801 (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=1315.msg314801#msg314801) :)
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Note that it is in flower now, which certainly rules out G. purpurea and pannonica, as well as most Gentianella. G. scabra 'Zuki-rindo' is sold in supermarkets, and it is at least reddish: http://botanicallyinclined.org/sunday-phlog-never-enough-gentians-gentiana-species/ (http://botanicallyinclined.org/sunday-phlog-never-enough-gentians-gentiana-species/)
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Seems the likeliest suspect would be one of the dark pink G. scabra? hybrids they sell at garden centers and supermarkets in autumn?
Thanks indeed everyone. If I were a betting man I would bet short odds that Bjorna was right. I've asked my friend to find out where the person who gave it to him got it from and anything else he/she knows about it. Will report back as and when I can
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Gentiana pannonica (normally purplish, a few photos show red flowers)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasroland/4996685876 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasroland/4996685876)
http://www.pbase.com/image/100269625 (http://www.pbase.com/image/100269625)
Many photos of G. purpurea look straight out red
http://images.summitpost.org/original/871312.jpg (http://images.summitpost.org/original/871312.jpg)
Triosteum perfoliatum (Late Horse Gentian) Who knows when someboady says "gentian" what they're truly referring to ;-)
https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/udata/r9ndp23q/pd/triosteum-perfoliatum-17.jpg (https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/udata/r9ndp23q/pd/triosteum-perfoliatum-17.jpg)
Prairie Gentian, Lisianthus hybrids, (Eustoma grandiflorum)
There's some red ones, I did not include links to these monstrous developments of an otherwise elegant prairie wildflower.
Gentianella rupicola, and G. cernua, both reddish orange
scroll down to find it:
http://www.snipview.com/q/Gentianella (http://www.snipview.com/q/Gentianella)
Gentiana lutea x G.purpurea on SRGC 2013
http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=10681.165 (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=10681.165)
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Cheers for that McMark, very helpful.
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I also think Arisaema is right - probably some G. scabra cv., but as to the colour it depends what we call red. G. scabra has flowers in the magenta range (with more blue than red mixed in).
Few images of G. purpurea and G. pannonica are surely arranged a bit with Photoshop and that changes completely the reality.
Here are few with G. pannonica, a bit more true -
http://www.biowin.at/all/Pflanzen/bilder/gentianales/gentianaceae/Gentiana/Gentiana%20pannonica/Gentiana%20pannonica.htm (http://www.biowin.at/all/Pflanzen/bilder/gentianales/gentianaceae/Gentiana/Gentiana%20pannonica/Gentiana%20pannonica.htm)
Gentianas are beautiful in any colour :)
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The photos by Cliff, Luit and Philippe in the links I gave are, I am confident, not "photoshopped" at all.
Happily very few forumists are in the habit of adding unnecessary "oomph" to their photos - it is one of the joys of pictures here that they are, with VERY few exceptions, natural representations of the plants.
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Well, more information received but as far as I can see doesn't take my search much further. My friend found a label and it shows Gentiana clusii 'Mefisto'. I have not managed to find anything tangible on Google, The Plant Finder (difficult to find anything on it these days!), or The Plant List, or indeed a search on The Forum. I did find a vague reference below:-
http://mailman.science.uu.nl/pipermail/alpine-l/1997-June/026809.html (http://mailman.science.uu.nl/pipermail/alpine-l/1997-June/026809.html)
And an equally vague reference to 'Mefistofilo' below but couldn't find it among the pictures shown. I also searched Plant Finder and Plant List to no avail.
http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/genziana (http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/genziana)
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The photos by Cliff, Luit and Philippe in the links I gave are, I am confident, not "photoshopped" at all.
Happily very few forumists are in the habit of adding unnecessary "oomph" to their photos - it is one of the joys of pictures here that they are, with VERY few exceptions, natural representations of the plants.
I said 'few' images; my apologies where necessary. I will wait to see an image of this much debated over red Gentiana.
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Dear Gabriela, I knew you were talking about images in "outside" links - I was just making a point in case anyone new to the forum thought we were in the habit of seeing heavily manipulated images which would decrease the value of the resource!
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[attachimg=1]
Well, more information received but as far as I can see doesn't take my search much further. My friend found a label and it shows Gentiana clusii 'Mefisto'. I have not managed to find anything tangible on Google, The Plant Finder (difficult to find anything on it these days!), or The Plant List, or indeed a search on The Forum. I did find a vague reference below:-
http://mailman.science.uu.nl/pipermail/alpine-l/1997-June/026809.html (http://mailman.science.uu.nl/pipermail/alpine-l/1997-June/026809.html)
This is a shot of the plate in Halda's book - colour isn't too good, because background colour on actual page is a sort of mossy green, which is not showing up at all in the photo. Anyway, 'Mefisto' is the purple/pink flower with reddish spot to the outer - centre right of the image as it appears here.
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Quite an elastic description of the term 'red' going by that picture Maggi.
By the way, I certainly do some post-processing to photos - cropping, adjusting exposure etc. I expect many others do too. But this isn't 'Photoshopping' in the sense that the aim is not to make it something that it isn't, but to enhance the image, as I and the camera don't always get photos quite right! In that sense they are still natural representations of the plants.
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(Attachment Link)
This is a shot of the plate in Halda's book - colour isn't too good, because background colour on actual page is a sort of mossy green, which is not showing up at all in the photo. Anyway, 'Mefisto' is the purple/pink flower with reddish spot to the outer - centre right of the image as it appears here.
Cheers for that Maggi. I didn't see the flowers fully open in my friends garden but, as I remember they were the colour of the stem on that image. Now to find out where his other friend got the plants from.
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Reds are one of the most mis-described colours , I reckon.
The spots on the outside of the trumpets are certainly more obviously red.
Yes, Tristan , it's sometimes important to adjust colour to give a more accurate representation to the eye - but that's a long way from what we would all recognise as the "photo-shopping" phenomenon!
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Reds are one of the most mis-described colours , I reckon.
The spots on the outside of the trumpets are certainly more obviously red.
I definitely agree with this Maggi, especially historically in old texts. It seems as if the definition of red has drifted. I have a bunch of seedlings of 'Red' Aubrieta coming into flower here and they are purple. Did you know that the colour we call pink, didn't exist until the late 17th century. Up to that point people spoke of light red or pale red in English. Now we consider it as a completely separate colour in its own right. Fascinating isn't it?
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Colour is indeed fascinating - the perception of tone and hue is very much a subjective one for the most part but the wide variations in descriptions, perhaps caused in some measure by the names given to colours which also may be picked up differently by each person, to add to the muddle. Think scarlet, crimson, ruby, for instance!
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There's always the RHS Colour Chart, if you have £200 to spare.