While the spring holds the distinction of hosting the largest bloom of wildflowers of any season, it’s in the early fall that one of the showiest and loveliest flowers of the year makes a vibrant and elegant appearance that puts other many well known species to shame. Fringed gentian, an ethereal blue to light amethyst flower, standing 2-3 feet tall, capable of producing up to 100 2-inch long flowers, typically blossoms from mid-September to early October. Its level of admiration and praise by poets and naturalists alike is uncanny.

William Cullen Bryant penned a stirring poem solely dedicated to this species which he described as “Blue—blue—as if the sky let fall/A flower from its cerulean wall.” “It is too remarkable a flower,” Thoreau once mused, “not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare.” The Catskills naturalist, John Burroughs, shared similar thoughts, believing it to be “the most beautiful of our fall flowers,” adding further, “it lures and holds every passing human eye.”