Howdy Gibby:
There was an excellent presentation at the PPA in August about various aspects of the Pine Barrens Gentian, given by a PhD candidate , Ryan Rebozo. Among the surprising (at least to me) things he mentioned was that the number of petals can vary from, I believe, 3 thru 5. Ryan said that this characteristic, along with color variations, seems to persist in individual plants. He's been monitoring several populations, with individual plants identified with metal tags in the ground. Even more amazing, Bryan said the flower blooms as a male, then after dispensing pollen, morphs into a female form and receives pollen with which to fertilize its nascent embryo. I'd never heard about that happening in any plant. Today Mark S. told me other plants, such as Aster species, also do this. Along with learning about plants with underground/underwater flowers, I'm learning that plants are literally wonderful.