Flowers are 2 to 3 inches long, of 4 deep purple-blue petals, fitted together to form a square column for over half their length, then, in sunlight, flaring outward to exhibit fringed tops and upper edges. Each flower is at the end of a stem which bears several pairs of oblong, opposite leaves. Plants are about 12 inches high of several erect stems branching from near the base. Grows in sub-alpine wet meadows. Blooms August-September.

The lush hay meadows of Colorado’s upland parks are bright through the summer with a succession of flowers. Late in the season come the gentians. There are several species of these (we have counted a dozen on a single trip), some of them quite uninteresting, weedy plants. The queen of them is the fringed gentian, growing in abundance along the edge of these high hay meadows, and even persisting in the stubble after haying is past. A few of them last into late September. The flowers close up under cloudy skies, but to find masses of them full-open on a sunny day, when they display their fringed petals and large golden stamens, is a heart-warming experience to be treasured for flowerless days ahead.