PLANTS: Annual or perennial herbs with caudex or rhizomes.

STEMS: erect, leafy, scapose or subscapose.

LEAVES: in basal rosettes or cauline, opposite or whorled, often with white margins.

INFLORESCENCE: cymes, racemes, or panicles.

FLOWERS: rotate, 4- or 5-merous; calyx deeply cleft, the lobes fused only near the base; corolla deeply parted, sometimes bearing a fringed crown (corona) at the base of the lobes, the lobes with 1 or 2 fringed nectar pits; stamens adnate to the short corolla tube; pistil sessile, the style short with 2 stigmas. (Frasera Walt.)

NOTES: Ca 100 spp., N. Amer, Eur., Asia, Afr. (for E. Sweert, a Dutch gardener, author). Card, H. H. 1931. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 18:245-280. St. John, H. 1941. Amer. MidI. Naturalist 26: 1-29.

REFERENCES: Mason, Charles T. 1998 Gentianaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. 30(2): 84.