''Gentiana alba'' (called plain, pale, white, cream, or yellow gentian) is a herbaceous species of flowering plant in the Gentian family

Gentianaceae Gentianaceae is a family of flowering plants of 103 genera and about 1600 species. Etymology The family takes its name from the genus '' Gentiana'', named after the Illyrian king Gentius. Distribution Distribution is cosmopolitan. Characteri ...

, producing yellowish-white colored flowers from thick white taproots. It is native to North America from Manitoba through Ontario in the north, south to Oklahoma, Arkansas and North Carolina, and it is listed as rare, endangered, threatened or extirpated in parts of this range. This species resembles bottle gentian ('' Gentiana andrewsii''), which has blue flowers and a less upright habit, and shares much of the same range. ''Gentiana alba'' starts to bloom a few weeks earlier than bottle gentian and the flowers are more open at the tops. ''Gentiana alba'' can also

hybridize Hybridization (or hybridisation) may refer to: *Hybridization (biology), the process of combining different varieties of organisms to create a hybrid *Orbital hybridization, in chemistry, the mixing of atomic orbitals into new hybrid orbitals *Nu ...

with ''Gentiana andrewsii'', producing upright growing plants having white flowers with blue edges. Synonyms include ''Gentiana flavida'' A. Gray

References

alba ''Alba'' ( , ) is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is also, in English language historiography, used to refer to the polity of Picts and Scottish people, Scots united in the ninth century as the Kingdom of Alba, until it developed i ...

Flora of the Northeastern United States Flora of the Southeastern United States Flora of the Appalachian Mountains Flora of the Great Lakes region (North America) Flora of Ohio Taxa named by Thomas Nuttall Plants described in 1813 {{Gentianales-stub