gentian

Any of various herbs of the family Gentianaceae found in temperate and mountainous regions with violet or blue flowers.

On the cover of the leaflet advertising the Alpenrose Gasthof in Zirl am Gurgl […] there is a decorative picture of a young woman. […] She has bright flaxen hair and laughing eyes of the same hue as the gentians in the meadow beyond the inn.

Searching again, he noticed something that had eluded him before: a single flower, a gentian, blooming not fifty feet in front of them, where, by all rights, there ought to be solid rock. How does it get enough light to live?

Dried roots and rhizome of European gentian (Gentiana lutea), used as a tonic.