The Gentian family includes over 100 genera, distributed worldwide. Six of those genera are reported for Florida, the most variable and visible being Sabatia, with 15 species found in the state. The other five genera comprise 10 species. One of those, Voyria, the Ghostplant, is Florida’s only representative of an achlorophyllous group native to Tropical America. You’ll not see that in the Panhandle; it’s reported solely from the most Southern areas, Miami-Dade and the Keys. Then there were four other genera (Gentiana, Bartonia, Eustoma, and Obolaria) to consider. It’s nice but not overwhelming group to get your mind around.
Keys to Gentianaceae in Flora of Florida (FoF) begin by segregating plants with scale-like leaves, which includes Voyria, Bartonia, and Obolaria. The achlorophyllous Voyria does not occur in Northern Florida, and the rare Obolaria virginica is reported only from Jefferson County. That leaves Bartonia as the only Gentian with scale-like leaves you are likely to encounter in the Apalachicola Flora.
The three genera with normal leaves, Gentiana, Eustoma, and Sabatia, are distinguished based on relative length of the corolla tube, Gentiana producing a tubular flower bearing short lobes, as contrasted with flowers of Eustoma and Sabatia, in which the petals are basally united, but so deeply lobed as to appear separate. Almost every Florida species of Sabatia can be found in the Apalachicola Flora, but Eustoma, the Prairie Gentian, which is known through many areas of the Peninsula, is present only in the the extreme west of the Panandle (Escambia County), thus students of the local flora can set this plant aside.
The fallout for our Apalachicola Flora? You are likely to encounter only three genera of Gentians – including any of three species of Bartonia, four species of Gentiana, and practically all 15 species of Sabatia. Learning to identify these different plants isn’t nearly the task demanded by larger groups, such as Composites, Grasses, or Mints. The true challenge for field study is knowing when the plant at hand is a Gentian.
There are useful filters. Sabatia and Bartonia are uprightly herbaceous; only Gentiana stems are lax or sprawling; and none of our plants are shrubby or woody, or vining. The Gentians lack milky sap. They all have simple, (mostly glabrous) cauline leaves, with entire margins (though ciliate in Gentiana). Leaves are neither petiolate nor stipulate, and none are huge. Descriptions give 12 cm (about 5”) as the longest leaf you might encounter. Bartonia, which has very small, scale-like leaves is the sole genus in which leaves might be alternately arranged. Both Gentiana and Sabatia have opposite leaves. Another clue to identification is that stamens number the same as sepals and petals (petal lobes), alternating with petals in attachment. Sepals, petals, and stamens are four each in Bartonia, five each in Gentiana, and five each for ten species of Sabatia while the remaining four species have a variable number, from seven to fourteen petals. Flower colors range from white to yellowish for Bartonia, white into the blues for Gentiana, and white to deep pink for Sabatia. None will bear strong yellow, orange, or red flowers. All form rotate flowers, that is the corollas are radially symmetrical; there are no zygomorphic Bartonia, Gentiana, or Sabatia. All have a simple, superior pistil that is 2-carpellate and uniloculate with parietal placentation. Consistently, the pistils bear a single style with two stigmatic lobes (very conspicuous in Sabatia.)
That suite of characters will eliminate most plant families, even others in the Order (the Gentianales), which includes the Apocynacae, Gelsemiaceae, Loganiaceae, and Rubiaceae. The Apocs have millky sap, Gelsemium is vining, Loganiacs (Mitreola and Spigelia) have epipetalous stamens, and the Rubiacs have conspicuous stipules, epipetalous stamens, as well as inferior fruit. Apart from the Gentianales, descriptions might also lead you to Caryophyllaceae,, Caprifoliaceae (Valerianella), or Clusiaceae (Hypericum gentianoides or H. mutilum). But we have additional filters available.
Caprifoliaceous flowers bear epipetalous stamens, which is what one would find in dissecting the radially-symmetrical blossoms of the herbaceous Valerianella. On paper, these flowers do not meet criteria of Gentianaceae, but that might be difficult to confirm given the tiny flowers. Thankfulliy, those very tiny flowers, borne in congested, multi-bracteate inflorescences makes them distinct from Gentians in our flora. Browse Vallerianella photos in the ISB website, which should eliminate possible confusion with either Sabatia or Gentiana.
Hypericum is marked by flowers with 5 petals, numerous stamens, and distinctly yellow color. Only the herbaceous, multi-branched H. gentianoides, with its scale-like leaves and Hypericum mutilum with its obvious floral bracts might produce flowers with 5 stamens.
Caryophyllaceae provides a moment for reflection, and possible confusion. In FoF, that family falls out in Dicotyledon Family KEY 5 reflecting its distinction from Gentianaceae, which you’ll find in KEY 3. The difference between landing in KEY 3 versus KEY 5 is a couplet in the Index Key that parses “petals free” to KEY 5, which leads to Caryophyllaceae versus “Petals united, at least basally” that sends you to KEY 3. This one’s dicey. It would be easy enough for someone to misinterpret Sabatia, in which petals can seem free, though not completely separate nor clawed.
There’s a host of subtle distinctions between the two families. Caryoplylls may be low sprawling herbs, have swollen nodes, produce flowers in tight clusters, have evidently pubescent leaves, or produce deeply bifid petals. Regardless, you’d be easily forgiven in mistaking some Gentians with Caryophyllaceae; Linnaeus included the widespread Bartonia virginica in the European Caryophyllaceous genus Sagina.
The better approach will be to form your own search image for the regional Gentians. I hope the accompanying treatments will help in that quest.
Genera
History
The birth of Gentianaceae as a recognized family dates to 1789, with Antoine Laurent de Jussieu’s Genera Plantarum, in which he describes “Ordo XIII, Gentinae, Les Gentianes,” recognizing thirteen allied genera. Jussieu’s Genera culminated emerging consensus among France’s botanists that plants evidence native, or “natural” relationships that should be reflected in the manner in which they are organized, in botanical terms, “systematized.” Today, this concept feels normal, but in the 18th century, it was novel.
Linnaeus, who dominated botany for much of the century, had devised a system of organization based on numbers, which scientists lean on for objective comparison. His criteria were sexual structures, with the numbers and arrangement of stamens and pistils generating a matrix of convenient pigeonholes for grouping genera. In the first edition of Species Plantarum (1753), Linnaeus included several plants Jussieu would later treat as Gentians, but organized them very differently. Exacum is found on page 112, with plants showing 4 stamens and 1 pistil. Bartonia (classified in his genus Sagina) was categorized as having four stamens and four carpels. Spigelia, Ophiorhiza, and Chironia (Linnaeus’s name for Sabatia) fall out together on pages 149, 150, and 189, as having 5 stamens and 1 pistil. Linnaeus lists the other plants Jussieu recognized as Gentianaceae, Swertia and Gentiana, on pages 226 and 229, among plants with 5 stamens and 2-carpellate pistils (showing two distinct styles). The system, though clearly objective, suffers from using a silver bullet to negotiate fixed assets.
In the Linnaean System, plants similar to one another in practically every regard may be filed based on anomalies, missing a stamen or producing a second whorl of stamens. For Linnaeus, those shifting morphologies, which occur regularly in horticulture, would propel a plant to a different Genus, and even a different Class where it might congregate with others similarly mismatched. Moreover, if the observation is faulty, for example crediting Sabatia dodecandra with 5 stamens, even the purely objective and entry level use of stamen number is compromised. Recall Linnaeus worked in a time before evolution was doctrine. All plants were of equal standing, having been created from the beginning. Genetics as the basis for characteristics and biologies was not part of the mindset. Plants needed names, the giving of which was somewhat philosophical. The “genus” was a general category, a concept, whereas each “species” was a particular concrete example of that category. A species would be equivalent to the Biblical “kind” – a kind of Sabatia, or a kind of Gentian.
Researchers in France were not (yet) denying the basic concept that plants came into being as static kinds to be named and used for human benefit. Botanists throughout Western culture studied and compared plants as artifacts of Creation. Within that model, botanists increasingly documented undeniable similarities between plants we consider related today. The need to reconcile similarities with original creation led to the concept of a “Chain” of life. Obviously, organisms didn’t materialize helter skelter; there was a plan, it was a clockwork universe. Linnaeus saw the plan through his matrix; the French saw different kinds of plants as being links in a chain of biodiversity. A certain number of links, one segment of a chain, would be a Genus. Some people even wondered about a perfect number that might constitute a segment, a Genus. With enough chain segments, you have a Family (or Order) – a “natural” order could be discovered by examining plant characters to determine which link leads to the next. That simple logic would fall apart as more plants were described and it seemed the chain might need branches, it even might be reticulate. But the ruling dictum of Jussieu’s era was: Natura non facit saltus, that is, the body, or chain of life must be linear and complete, from the simplest to the most complex beings. Linear thinking at its most rigorous.
Unearthing rules governing the chain of life promised revelation of botany’s equivalent to the theory of relativity. Jussieu’s system included a stab at this with a method of higher classification, the most resilient fallout of which was segregating Monocots from Dicots. Still and yet, a glimpse at his system is worth a moment’s consideration. His Class I consists of plants with no Cotyledons, the Fungi, Algae, Mosses, Ferns, etc.. Classes II, III, and IV comprise the Monocotyledons, with various staminal structures. Dicotyledonous plants were considered as Apetalous (Classes V, VI, and VII), Monopetalous (those with tubular corollas) constituting Classes VIII, IX, X, XI), and Polypetalous (plants with clearly separate petals) being Classes XII, XIII, and XIV. Class XV was a true catchall, grouping plants with irregular flowers and fruit, ranging from Euphorbs, to Cucurbits, Nettles, Aments, and the Conifers. We’ll not give this more attention. The important, lasting contribution of Genera is the natural approach to grouping Genera as Families, which was one of many propositions that set the stage for 19th Century discussion leading to evolutionary theory and 20th Century research that would explain the genetic basis of life.
Jussieu wasn’t the first in France to publicize these concepts. His Uncle, Bernard de Jussieu had been active in discussing a natural system three decades earlier, though it was something he never published. Eager to give his Uncle credit, Antoine de Jussieu includes a summary of Bernard’s 1859 system in Genera, perhaps most pointedly to establish precedent over the work of Michel Adanson, whose Familles des plantes, published a quarter century earlier, in 1763, walked the same path and was prescient in many regards. Adanson’s Familles was an enormous undertaking, a tour de force of typesetting necessary to chart his thoughts about relationships of the world’s plants. In one modest segment, Adanson makes it clear he understood relationships at the core of the Gentians. He had aggregated five of the same genera treated 25 years later as Gentianaceae by Jussieu, along with three new genera (including Sabatia), to form a meaningful grouping which he explained was to be tucked into his Family 23, the Apocynaceae. As mentioned earlier, Apocynaceae is still regarded as Gentianales, so Adanson was onto something. But he was also a bit maniacal, derided by noted botanist Julius von Sachs. It’s easy to see how Sachs considers Familles a trainwreck, clearly animated by Adanson’s desire to gain credit for moving beyond Linnaeus. But in the frenzy of Familles there are solid constructs.
Knowledge of many plants we include in the family, of course, precedes the work of Adanson and Jussieu. The generic name, Gentiana, is credited technically to Tournefort, as the source accepted and published in Linnaeus’s Species plantarum. Examining Tournefort’s Institutiones rei herbariae (1719), we see he lists 20 different polysyllabic names, drawn almost exclusively from Caspar Bauhin’s Pinax, noting for us in his final entry Gentians were known to Dioscorides. Unsurprisingly, closely related plants masqueraded as kinds of Gentiana, the only genus Tournefort treats that would become part of Jussieu’s family. With discovery of new species, across the history of plant discovery, we’ve come to expect early generic concepts to be splintered over and again.
And, of course, much has been written about Gentians since 1800. The North American species came to the attention of many botanists active in the early 19th century. People like Muhlenberg, Willdenow, Michaux, Nuttall, Pursh, Eaton, Persoon, Sims, as well as more recent botanists had input and disagreements regarding circumscription and naming of genera and species we know today. Much of that, at least with names and synonymies, has been resolved. Yet there is still so very much that isn’t known about these plants. Our simplest understanding regarding the number of plant species on Earth expanded from 8500 in the 18th century to over 300,000 two centuries later; the Gentians have burgeoned from well less than 100 known species to approximately 1800 today. The fascinating reality is that with so much published, there is still much to be learned about the diversity, life histories, and ecological interactions of Apalachicola’s Gentians – plenty of room for lay naturalists to contribute to that body of knowledge.
CITATIONS, PLAYERS, & NOTES:
Adanson, Michel ( 7 April 1727 – 3 August 1806) – French. 1763 Familles des Plantes. In his Addendum, Adanson listed Menyanthes, Centaurion (Centaurium), Dasystefana, Cicendia, Gentiana, Chironia, Chlora, Sabatia, Tretorrhiza, Exacon (Exacum), Swertia, Ciminalis to be added as a group to the Apocynaceae. It would be hard to deny Adanson appreciated this as a natural grouping. Cryptically incorporated were three newly published genera: Sabatia, Cicendia, and Ciminalis. You’ll see, in the treatment of Sabatia, that many 19th century authors “corrected” spelling of this genus to Sabbatia, properly reflecting Liberato Sabbati’s name. Moench, however, published (1794) a genus of mints (now considered synonymous to Micromeria) with this second spelling, .
Aublet, Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée (4 November 1720 – 6 May 1778) – French. As Aublet’s long-term mentor, Jussieu was quite familiar with Histoire des plantes de la Guiane Françoise, published in 1775. That work culminated Aublet’s productive but unsettled life as a pharmacist and botanist, with stints in Grenada, then in Mauritius, and finally (at 45), three years in French Guiana. The descriptions and drawings in Histoire, brought Aublet lasting botanical fame, documenting over 1200 species in 576 genera, a third of which were new to science. His work contributed significantly to Jussieu’s treatment of the Gentianaceae; four of ten genera in the family were tropical plants described by Aublet: Tachia, Potalia, Voyria (Jussieu missp. was Vohiria), and Coutoubea.
Britton, Nathaniel Lord, E. E. Sterns, & Justus F. Poggenburg, with Addison Brown, Thomas C. Porter, & Arthur Hollick. A Committee of the Torrey Botanical Club,1888. Preliminary Ctalogue of the Anthophyta and Pteridophyta Reported as Growing Spontaneously within One Hundred Miles of New York City, New Yor, April 25th, 1888. Cited variously,
Eaton, Amos (17 May 1776 – 10 May 1842) – New York, USA. Beginning in 1817, Eaton published his Manual of Botany, which he saw througn several editions and title alterations (the 3rd in 1822, 5th in 1829, 6th in 1833, 7th edition in 1836. ) The first edition had been published by students at Williams College, thus the 1818 edition becomes the first commercially-set and distributed text.
Eaton’s biography, related in Wikipedia, tells us so very much about family relationships of earlier years, particularly addressing survival chances of women: “Following the death of his first wife, Polly Thomas, Eaton was remarried to Sally Cady in 1803, who bore him five sons. After her death he was remarried to Anna Bradley in 1816, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. She having died, Eaton married Alice Johnson in 1827, who bore him one son, and survived him about four years. Three of his children showed a preference for natural philosophy. Hezekiah Hulbert Eaton (1809-1832) became a chemist at Transylvania University but died at the age of twenty-three.[17] Major General Amos Beebe Eaton (1806-1877) was a U.S. Army officer interested in natural philosophy. Sara Cady Eaton (1818-1881) taught natural sciences and modern languages in a young woman’s seminary at Monticello, Illinois. Eaton’s grandson, Daniel Cady Eaton (1834-1895), professed botany at Yale College in the 1860s.
Fernald, Merritt Lyndon (5 October 1873 – 22 September 1950) – Maine, USA. A driving force in Harvard Botany, Fernald published many papers and edited the 7th edition of Gray’s Manual, Fernald must have been firm in his convictions. My major prof at Vanderbilt, Ben Channell, referencing Fernald’s initials, referred to him as “My Lord Fernald.” Weatherby, Charles Alfred (1875 – 1949)- Connecticut & Colorado, US. Curator of Gray Herbarium Harvard. see: Fernald, M. L. and C. A. Weatherby. 1932. Bartonia; a comedy of errors. Rhodora 34: 164—167. You should look up this paper and take in its smug critique.
Gillett, John Montague (26 November 1918 – 27 December 2014) – Ottawa, Canada. His Ph.D. thesis at Washington University (St. Louis) was a monograph of Gentianella. In addition to work on Gentians and a love of floristic field work, Gillett specialized in Trifolium. Relevant to our flora is his 1959 paper, A Revision of Bartonia and Obolaria (Gentianaceae), Rhodora, 61: 43-62 .
Gilg, Ernest Friedrich (12 January 1867 – 11 Octob434 1933) – German. Gilg was a curator at Berlin’s Botanical Museum, working with Engler. Among many diligencies, Gilg specialized in Grasses., with 42 taxa to his credit. In 1895, his treatment of Gentianaceae was published in Engler & Prantl, Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 4(2): 50-108.
Hill, John (1716 – 1775) English. In 1756, Hill issued The British Herbal: an History of Plants and Trees, Natives of Britain, Cultivated for use, or Raised for Beauty. Alongside his description of Gentians, he resurrected Centaurian, a genus used for Gentians by earlier writers, but not adopted by Linnaeus. The fascinating aspect of this book is the more natural approach Hill takes in classification. But for the fact that he was totally despised by many educated people might explain the reason he was never credited with his simple scheme.
de Jussieu, Antoine Laurent – (12 April 1748 – 17 September 1836) – French. 1789. Genera Plantarum. Jussieu’s book, which by code is the starting point for authority of plant family names, covers his system for natural classification of the world’s known plants, with accepted genera parsed into 100 Orders (Families in contemporary terminology) treated in 453 pages of text. The Gentianaceae, page 141, is “Order XIII: Gentianae, Les Gentianes, Class VIII: PLANTAE DICOTYLEDONES MONOPETALAE – Corolla Hypogyna.” Genera included: Gentiana, Vohiria, Coutoubea, Swertia, Chlora, Exacum, Lisianthus Tachia, Chironia Nigrina, Spigelia, Ophiorrhiza, and (with affinity) Potalia.
Linnaeus, Carl – (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1776) Though authority for binomials in plant taxonomy begins with Linnaeus’s first edition of Species Plantarum (1753), checking Plants of the World On Line (POWO) you’ll note the cited authority gives credit to various earlier authors. In the case of Gentiana, it was clear Linnaeus adapted his treatment from Tournefort, thus POWO cites authority for Gentiana as Tournefort ex Linnaeus, which means it was a Tournefort name first published validly by Linnaeus. Most American publications omit this credit, and continue to utilize the traditional citation, the “L.”
Michaux, André (8 March 1746 – 11 October 1802) – French. Noted for his 1803 Flora Boreali-Ameriana, in which he published the genus Centaurella (Volume 1: 97, 98 with illustrations in t. 12), a taxon considered synonymous to Muhenberg’s Bartonia, which had been published by Willdenow in 1801. Fernald & Weatherby (1932) discuss the confusion surrounding application of these names.
Muhlenberg, Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst (Henry) (17 November 1753 – 23 May 1815) Pennsylvania, USA. Muhlenberg moved to Germany for his college education, after which he returned to Pennsylvania as a Lutheran Minister, later earning his Doctorate in Divinity from Princeton. Retiring from ministry in 1779. Muhlenberg dedicated himself to botany and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1785. His best-known works are the 1813 Catalogus Plantarum Americae Septentrionalis (Catalog of the Plants of North America) and his 1817 Descriptio Uberiaor Graminum et Plantarum Calamariarum Americae Septentrionalis Indiginarium et Cicurum. (A More Detailed Description of the Grasses and Reeds of North America, Native and Naturalized) (Sidenote: the translation programs will interpret Calamariarum as Squid). In his 1813 Catalog, Muhlenberg classifies Bartonia as Tetrandria Monogynia, noting Michaux’s Centaurella as a synonym and listing two species: B. verna and B. paniculata. Benjamin Smith Barton, however, citing a Rafinesque manuscript, had made the combination Boltonia verna just the year before in his 1812 edited version of Gronovius’s Flora Virginica. Until recently, citations for Bartonia credited this recognition to Muhlenberg, but more recent publications have taken note. Not surprising, Barton of course would have been keen to keep the record straight on plants in the genus named for him.
Nuttall, Thomas (6 January 1786 – 10 September 1859) – English. Nuttall, whose first collecting expedition to North America was cut short by the 1812 War, returned to the US in 1815, where , in 1818, he published Genera of North American Plants. Holding positions at Harvard Botanical Gardens and eventually at Philadelphia’s Natural Academy of Sciences, Nuttall published his 1841 North American Sylva – Trees of North America not described by F. A. Michaux on the eve of his departure to England, where he retired on an inheritance as a country gentlemen.
Pursh, Frederick Traugott (4 February 1774 – 11 July 1820) Employed initially by William Hamilton as botanist at Hamilton’s Philadelphia estate, ‘The Woodlands’ (1803-1805,) Pursh began workng for Benjamin Smith Barton on Barton’s dream project, a flora of North America, which gave him access to specimens from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The flora was never completed, but Pursh, who returned to England in 1813 , published Flora americae septentrionalis(1814); or A Systematic Arrangement and Description of The Plants of North America, a treatment ridiculed by Rafinesque (1818). Pursh returned to North America, where he collected extensively in Canada, Those collections were destroyed in a fire, and Pursh’s life took a nosedive. He died in Montreal in 1820.
In the 1814 Flora, Pursh used the Linnaean system, including Sabbatia, genus 171, on pg 137, as Pentandria monogynia and Gentiana, genus 227 on pg 185-187 in Pentandria Digynia. He recognizes Centaurella Michaux on pages 99-100, subsuming Bartonia Muhlenberg.
Persoon, Christian Hendrik – (1 February 1761 – 16 November 1836) South African who relocated permanently to Paris in 1802. A colorful individual, his life and works have been praised: “Persoon was the first successful mycological systematist” Journal of Wild Mushrooming. But he also published, in 1805, his Synopsis plantarum,seu Enchiridium botanicum, complectens enumerationem systematicam specierum hucusque cognitarum, which translates: “Synopsis of plants, or Enchiridium botanicum, comprising a systematic enumeration of the species hitherto known.” An “Enchiridium” is a handbook, or small manual, Though a bit arcane, Persoon’s Synopsis was also well-known, and early in ratifying publication of Bartonia tenella as the founding taxon of that genus.
Persoon, though, remained a fascinating character. From Chester R. Benjamin’s ‘Biographical notes on Persoon’, Proceedings Iowa Academy of Science, V60 Article 11: “He loved with a botanist’s passion both living and dried plants, though his awkward hand tore them in the gardens or broke them in herbariums. Surprised in flagrant offense at a public garden, he was warned several times by the gardener to no avail and he l?st much in the public estimate. However, he possessed an out- standing reputation as author of the first reasonable classification of the fungi, .of the first synopsis treating these organisms, as well as of a manual published in Paris, in which he described more than 22,000 plants and of which the diagnoses are regarded as a model of conciseness and exactitude. A mycology of Europe, a treatment of the edible fungi, and a number of memoirs on various scientific subjects established his reputation on a firm foundation. He was regarded as one of the foremost botanists of Europe and considered, particularly by the Germans, as the “prince of mycologists”.”
Persoon lived his early life in South Africa, and was never priveleged or even well-compensated. Benjamin relates a description: “According to Fee, Persoon was large, lean, bony, with long legs and long arms attached to an uncomely body; his head large, supported by a small neck and tilted over awkward shoulders; his skin red, scaly, and covered with pale blemishes; his scanty hair grizzled, waving over a forehead wrinkled and bunched; his enormous mouth containing a small number of shaky teeth and always full of saliva, much of which escaped in jets with each word he spoke; his eyes grey and watery, half-opened and almost lost behind prominent, puffy cheeks; his ears enormous and directed forward; and his face wrinkled and without expression. He was coarsely clad. His clothes were bizarre of form and strange of color, worn through by long service. He often lacked many of the most common necessities.” Persoon’ s archive is at Leiden University, but Hunt Institute maintains a copy of the materials.
Rafinesque-Schmaltz, Constantine Samuel (22 October 1783 – 18 September 1840) – French, born near Constantinople. When discussing history of the North American flora, you’re bound to encounter Rafinesque, on of the botany’s brilliant bad boys. Fernald and Weatherby (1932) cite comments by Rafinesque in the 1818 American Monthly Magazine and Critical Review (which they abbreviate as Am. Mo. Mag.) His article 2, January, pg 170, is an extensive (nearly 6 full, double-column pages), critical — yes, excoriating review of Pursh’s 1814 Flora Americae Septentrionalis,
Robinson, B. L. (8 November 1864 – 27 July 1935) - Illinois, USA. In 1908, Robinson published ’Notes on the Vascular Plants of the Northeastern United States’ (Rhodora 10: 29-35.) On page 35, he makes the combination Bartonia paniculata, not aware that Muhlenberg had completed the task in 1813.
Sims, John (13 October 1749 – 26 February 1831) – English. One of many Quaker botanists, Sims was the first editor to succeed Curtis at the Botanical Magazine. His contribution to discussion of Gentianaceae revolves around misinformation common to the horticultural trade, as well as iinaccurate communication from Pursh. The plant he illustrates as a Bartonia in Bot Mag, is an unrelated Mentzellia. Because he has misinterpreted Bartonia, based on information from Pursh, he continues to support the genus Centaurella for the Gentianaceous plants.
Sprengel, Kurt Polycarp Joachim ( 3 August 1766 – 15 March 1833) – German. International Plant Names Index (IPNI) lists 5205 names he published. Relevant to Gentianaceae, Sprengle edited the 16th edition of Linnaeus’s Systema Vegetabilium, introducing the genus Andrewsia as a substitute for Bartonia.
de Tournefort, Joseph Pitton (5 June 1656 – 25 Deember 1708) – French. 1719 Josephi Pitton Tournefort Aquisextiensis, doctoris medici Parisiensis … Institutiones rei herbariae. Though bearing a title beginning with his name and qualifications, it’s common to reference this work as Institutiones rei herbariae. It’s a significant, luxurious 3-volume set, two volumes of which are fine illustrations by Claude Aubriet, showcasing the genera described in Vol 1. Tournefort describes Gentiana, as a component of “Classis Prima, de Herbis et Suffruticibus, Flore monopetalo, Campaniformi,” further segregated in “Sectio III. De Herbis flore monopetalo, campaniformi, cujus pistillum abit in fructum siccum seu testam unicapsularem in nonnullis generibus, in aliis verò multicdapsularem.” Translated, that description tells us: “Of Herbs with a monopetalous (petals united), bell-shaped flower, the pistil of which turns into a dry fruit or a unicapsular shell in some species, but in others multicapsular. ” Other genera Tournefort includes in this section are: Cerinthe (Boranginaceae), Hydrophyllon (Hydrophyllum, Boraginaceae), Soldanella (Primulaceae), Convolvulus (Convolvulaceae), Tithymalus (Euphorbiaceae), and Oxys (Oxalis, Oxalidaceae). His treatment, therefore, resembles a modern artificial key, in which plants are grouped based on simple, somewhat easily-detected physical properties of the flowers, with no supposition as to natural affinity.
Weakley, Alan Stuart (b. 1957 contemporary) – Maryland, USA. Weakley directs the Herbarium at University of North Carolina, and holds a professorship at the Chapel Hill campus. His evolving Flora of the Southeastern US is available on-line. 2023, Flora of the Southeastern United States Gentianaceae: Gentiana: Sabatia: Bartonia
Willdenow, Carl Ludwig (22 August 1765 – 10 July 1812) – German. Willdenow died at the age of 46, having been curator of the Berlin Herbarium for several years. In 1803, he published XXVI Zehn Neue Gattungen von gewâchsen beschrieben von Herrn Professor C. L. Willdenow (Ten new genera of plants described by Professor C. L. Willdenow), in a somewhat obscure journal: Der gesellschaft naturforschender freunde zu Berlin neue schriften (New Writings of the Society of Natural rRsearch Friends in Berlin).
Willdenow begins treatment of Bartonia with the following: “VI. Bartonia. Herr Prediger Mühlenberg, der diese Gattung entdeckte, hat sie zum Andenken des Herrn D. Benjamin Smith Barton in Philadelphia benannt. Sie gehürt in die erste Ordnung der vierten Klasse (Tetrandria Monogynin) nach Scoparia. Der Bau der Blüthentheile ist folgender.” which translated (Google) states; “Mr. Preacher Mühlenberg, who discovered this genus, named it in memory of Mr. D. Benjamin Smith Barton of Philadelphia. It belongs to the first order of the fourth class (Tetrandria Monogynin) after Scoparia. The structure of the flower parts is as follows” .