These gentians flower from mid to late summer, most of them giving gentian colour after the alpine spring gentians, and before the asiatic autumn varieties. They have some upright and some trailing stems, with terminal clusters of flowers, deep blue or purplish blue in most species. Easy and very rewarding.

Gentiana dahurica makes clumps of upright stems, with several whorls of flowers, the topmost one making a substantial head. These flowers are deep blue, paler inside the tube, each some 3 to 4 cm long.