8 September 2026
Last week I was happy to see one of my favorite September flowers blooming at Sewickley Heights Park: Bottle gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) a perennial native.
The plant was a little worse for wear but for the most part it was still tightly closed and waiting to be pollinated. Will the tiny bug on the leftmost flower do the trick? No.
For pollination it takes a bumblebee who’s willing to put forth considerable effort.
When the bumblebee has finished the result is a nice crop of seeds.
Bottle gentians are so bumblebee-dependent that they are affected by bumblebee decline.
p.s. They are also subject to nectar robbing! The eastern carpenter bee (Xylocopa virginica) bypasses bottle gentian petals by drilling a narrow slit at the base of the flower to “steal” the nectar. Thus the flower is never pollinated. The slit allows other bee species to nectar rob as well.
I think I heard that bee cursing, Kate!!! 🙂 🙂 I loved this.
I loved it too. That video is the first time I’ve ever seen a bee go into a gentian. Totally amazing!
I love to see bumblebees at work. Generally, they are so imperturbable. It is captivating to watch them totally disappear into a blossom, such as a snapdragon or these gentian, and then carefully back out—a big surprise if you weren’t watching carefully beforehand! . . . Thanks so much for this video and article.
I watched bumblebees do this on anemone before the flowers fully opened. They were deep inside the bud and you could only see a bit in a tiny opening. Very cool.
i thought the answer was going to be something like the bumblebee chews open the flower to enter. wow, i also though the in/out would rub off the pollen. they must really like that nectar!!