[2] Gentianella anglica is endemic to Great Britain and its centre of distribution is in Dorset, Wiltshire, and the Isle of Wight.

It is a hairless plant with pairs of narrow lanceolate leaves and spikes of long-stalked, purplish, five-petalled flowers with the usually four calyx teeth unequal in size.

Other locations where it grows include Gloucestershire, Cornwall, the Dorset coast, and limestone quarries at Grimsthorpe, Lincolnshire.

It also occurs on the coastal grassland at Stackpole in West Wales, a long way from its southern England locations.

In general, populations are in decline as the old chalk grassland is ploughed up, or fertilised, or remains ungrazed with the production of ranker vegetation, as it cannot compete with more vigorous species.