gentiana

Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides both attribute the discovery of gentian's medicinal value to Gentius, the last king of Illyria, who ruled from 181 to 168 BCE. Gentius supposedly found that the root of this alpine plant could treat fever and digestive ailments. Whether the attribution is accurate or legendary, the name stuck. Gentiana became the plant's Latin name, and Gentius achieved an immortality that outlasted his kingdom by two millennia.

Gentian root was one of the most important medicinal plants in medieval and early modern European pharmacy. It was a primary ingredient in theriac — the universal antidote that pharmacists compounded from dozens of ingredients. The root is intensely bitter, and this bitterness was considered proof of its potency. Bitter medicines work, the reasoning went, precisely because they are unpleasant.

The flowers are another matter. Gentians produce some of the most intensely blue flowers in nature. The trumpet gentian (Gentiana acaulis) of the Alps is a blue so saturated it looks artificial. This blue has made gentians a symbol of mountain landscapes across Europe. In Bavaria, Switzerland, and Austria, the gentian appears on folk art, heraldic crests, and hiking culture. The Enzian schnaps — gentian liqueur — is a traditional Alpine digestif.

English adopted gentian in the 1300s via Old French gentiane. The word now names about 400 species worldwide, found on every continent except Antarctica. The bitterest of roots and the bluest of flowers, named for a forgotten Balkan king who lost his kingdom to Rome. Gentius would not mind. His name blooms every summer above the tree line.