Campanula rotundifolia

Harebell
File:Campanula rotondifolia.jpg
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Asterids
Order:	Asterales
Family:	Campanulaceae
Genus:	Campanula
Species:	C. rotundifolia
Binomial name
Campanula rotundifolia L. 1753
Synonyms
Synonymy Campanula allophylla Raf. ex A.DC. Campanula angustifolia Lam. Campanula antirrhina Schleich. Campanula asturica Podlech Campanula bielzii Schur Campanula bocconei Vill. Campanula caballeroi Sennen & Losa Campanula chinganensis A.I.Baranov Campanula confertifolia (Reut.) Witasek Campanula decloetiana Ortmann Campanula heterodoxa Vest ex Schult. Campanula hostii Baumg. Campanula inconcessa Schott, Nyman & Kotschy Campanula juncea Hill Campanula lanceolata Lapeyr. Campanula langsdorffiana (A. DC.) Trautv. Campanula legionensis Pau Campanula lobata Schloss. & Vuk. Campanula lostrittii Ten. Campanula minor Lam. Campanula minuta Savi Campanula paenina Reut. ex Tissière Campanula pennica Reut. ex Payot Campanula pennina Reut. Campanula pinifolia Uechtr. ex Pancic Campanula pseudovaldensis Schur Campanula solstitialis A.Kern. Campanula tenuifolia Hoffm. Campanula tenuifolia Mart. Campanula tracheliifolia Losa ex Sennen Campanula urbionensis Rivas Mart. & G.Navarro Campanula wiedmannii Podlech Depierrea campanuloides Schltdl.

Campanula rotundifolia (harebell) is a rhizomatous perennial flowering plant in the bellflower family native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

In Scotland, it is often known as the bluebell. Elsewhere in Britain, bluebell refers to Hyacinthoides non-scripta, and in North America, bluebell refers to Virginia bluebell. Campanula rotundifolia was historically also known by several other names including blawort, hair-bell, lady's thimble, witch's bells, and witch's thimbles.

Description

File:Campanula rotundifolia 21739.JPG

Petal lobes curve outwards.

File:Campanula rotundifolia Aachen.jpg

Growing wild on a soil covered concrete slab.

File:WP 20140712 22 27 19 Raw.jpg

White variant

Campanula rotundifolia is a perennial species of flowering plant, a slender, prostrate to erect herb, spreading by seed and rhizomes. The basal leaves are long-stalked, rounded to heart-shaped, usually slightly toothed, with prominent hydathodes, and often wither early. Leaves on the flowering stems are long and narrow and the upper ones are unstemmed. The inflorescence is a panicle or raceme, with 1 – many flowers borne on very slender pedicels. The flowers usually have five (occasionally 4, 6 or 7) pale to mid violet-blue petals fused together into a bell shape, about 12–30 mm (0.5–1.2 in) long and five long, pointed green sepals behind them. Plants with pale pink or white flowers may also occur. The petal lobes are triangular and curve outwards. The seeds are produced in a capsule about 3–4 mm (0.1–0.2 in) diameter and are released by pores at the base of the capsule. Seedlings are minute, but established plants can compete with tall grass. As with many other Campanulas, all parts of the plant exude white latex when injured or broken.

The flowering period is long, and varies by location. In the British Isles, harebell flowers from July to November. In Missouri, it flowers from May to August; in Minnesota, from June to October. The flowers are pollinated by bees, but can self-pollinate.

Adaptations

If exposed to moist cool conditions during the summer no pause in vegetative growth is exhibited, which suggests that temperature is a limiting factor. C. rotundifolia is more inclined to occupy climates that have an average temperature below 0 °C in the cold months and above 10 °C in the summer.

Habitat

Harebells are native to dry, nutrient-poor grassland and heaths in Britain, northern Europe, and North America. The plant often successfully colonises cracks in walls or cliff faces and dunes.

Forms

Campanula rotundifolia is very variable in form. It occurs as tetraploid or hexaploid populations in Britain and Ireland, but diploids occur widely in continental Europe. In Britain, the tetraploid population has an easterly distribution and the hexaploid population a westerly distribution, and very little mixing occurs at the range boundaries.

Culture

The harebell is dedicated to Saint Dominic.

In 2002 Plantlife named it the county flower of Yorkshire in the United Kingdom.

William Shakespeare makes a reference to 'the azured hare-bell' in Cymbeline

With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,

I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack

The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor

The azured hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor

The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,

Out-sweeten’d not thy breath.

John Clare draws attention to the brightness of the flowers of the Harebell in the dark of the wood.

By the hare-bell 's hazure sky,

(Like the hue of thy bright eye;)

That grows in woods, and groves so fair,

Where love I'd meet thee there.

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) wrote a poem entitled 'Hope is Like A Harebell'

Hope is like a harebell, trembling from its birth,

Love is like a rose, the joy of all the earth,

Faith is like a lily, lifted high and white,

Love is like a lovely rose, the world’s delight.

Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,

But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.

Emily Dickinson uses the harebell as an analogy for desire that grows cold once that which is cherished is attained.

Did the Harebell loose her girdle

To the lover Bee

Would the Bee the Harebell hallow

Much as formerly?

Did the paradise - persuaded

Yield her moat of pearl

Would the Eden be an Eden

Or the Earl -an Earl

Notes

Books

• R and A Fitter, The Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe, Collins, 1974

External links

• United States Department of Agriculture Plants Profile
• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, University of Texas, Native Plant Identification Network
• Paghat's Garden
• Robert W. Freckman Herbarium — University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point
• Nature of California — Las Pilitas Nursery
• Vascular Plants of the Gila Wilderness
• CalPhotos photo gallery, University of California

• The Plant List, Campanula rotundifolia L.
• Missouri Plants
• Montana Plant Life
• Shetler SG. 1982 Variation and evolution of Nearctic harebells (Campanula subsect. Heterophylla). Phan. Monogr. 11. 1-516 (1982)- En Abstr. in Excerpta Bot., A, 39(1): p.20 (1982).
• McAllister, H.A. 1973. The experimental taxonomy of Campanula rotundifolia L. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Glasgow
• Plantlife website County Flowers page
• William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (iv. 2), Arviragus speech
• John Clare,Poem, By a Cottage Near a Wood, written at High Beach, Epping, 1837–1841, and at Northborough, 1841
• Christina G Rossetti, A Nursery Rhyme Book, Macmillan and Co., London, New York (1893)
• Emily Dickinson, Did the Harebell loose her girdle, Volume: Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published in 1955