Closed (Bottle) Gentian Wildflower

It’s August in Rector, Pennsylvania and I am just several miles away from Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Falling Water. I am about 10 feet from a small pond, and found here this extraordinary wetland wildflower.

Gentiana Andrewsii peeked my curiosity when I feet saw it. Why are these flowers so tightly closed, with a small opening only at the tip of the flower? How does this dark bluish purple flower attract pollinators? Which flying insects have entered into eternal contract with this closed gentian, translated as “You feed me and I’ll pollinate you!”

Truth be told I have not spent hours observing the comings and goings here, but I have seen a number of American bumblebees (Bombus Pennsylvanicus).

Is this the optimum time to make a personal observation? Over these last 2 years, I have sought to coax out serious responses from those of you out there who are extensively well-backgrounded in this general area. Such responses would benefit all, and advance our goal, to encourage broader interest and attention to the success of butterfly populations here and abroad. For instance, here is this post of closed Gentian. Wouldn’t it be great if we drew input from naturalists and biologists and other -ists who are long familiar with it? We have had much less success with that then my readers would think, even with organizations that I belong to. If I had found dozens of blogs like wingedbeauty.com I wouldn’t have launched it. To my knowledge this is one of a small circle.

Jeff