Legendary Blue

Day 315: A modern story (~cough!) tells us that Gentians take their colour from the sky. How? Well, let me explain.

The deep cups of Mountain Bog Gentian (Gentiana calycosa) are particularly attractive to bumblebees, those great furry creatures who by all rights should be incapable of flight. But Bumblebee has a secret. His wings are a mosaic of sky fragments, so thin that they seem transparent, shimmering with summer sunlight. Bee moves through the air on his sky-wings but only with some effort due to his weight, so when he grows tired of propelling himself along, he often comes to rest in the cup of a Gentian.

Now Gentians don't care to have dew or rain fill their cups, so at night or when a cloud-shadow passes across them, their petals furl into a spiral, closing to form pointy minarets. That's their special magic. When a Bumblebee doesn't pay attention to the time of day or the weather, it may become trapped inside a Gentian blossom when it closes. Bumblebees are not known for their weather wisdom, so this is not an uncommon occurrence. When a Bee is caught in this manner, it cannot escape until the Gentian opens. It may buzz around inside, and in so doing, it transfers the blue sky-pigment from its wings to the flower. As you might imagine, this happens fairly often, but if you search carefully, you may still find white Gentians in the high country, unstained by the colour of the sky. They have not yet hosted a Bumblebee overnight.

The emergence of Gentians signifies the summer season drawing to a close. They are one of my favourite wildflowers. Yes, they really do close around hapless Bumblebees, and sometimes you will hear them buzzing, trying to escape a Gentian's grasp.