Froelich's Gentian (Gentiana froelichii)

Froelich's Gentian was found by the Slovene botanist, Franc Hladnik, in 1804 on Planjava in the Kamnik Alps. It is of interest that Hladnik wrote on the sheet of his herbarium the name Carniolan Gentian, and some of his botanical friends called it Hladnik's Gentian. Because of internationally accepted rules which apply to the naming of plants, after piecing together the various circumstances, this plant obtained the name Froelich's Gentian, after the German botanist, J.A.Froelich, who had written a work on the gentian genus.

It is a member of the Gentian family, 5 to 10 cm high and has a basal rosette of lanceolate, narrow fluted leaves, which are sharpened and fairly compact. The bell-shaped corolla is 3-4 cm long, has straight appendages and is light blue. The species is a relict from the Tertiary Era, from the time before the ice ages. It is a gentian of honourable age which is endemic to the Kamnik-Savinja Alps and the Karavanke in Slovenia, and Carinthia in Austria, and there is also one site in the Venetian Alps in Italy.

It grows on rocky grasslands and on shallow scree in the mountain world. Froelich's Gentian is on the Red List of threatened plants of Slovenia as an endemic plant, classified among unthreatened species. It has also been protected in Slovenia since 1922.

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Text by Nada Praprotnik