Campanula rotundifolia

Campanula rotundifolia, the harebell or common harebell, Scottish bluebell, or bluebell in Scotland, is a species of flowering plant in the bellflower family Campanulaceae.<ref name=vascan/> This herbaceous perennial is found throughout the north temperate regions of the Old World according to the Plants of the World Online database,<ref name="POWO"/> or throughout the northern hemisphere in other interpretations (see Taxonomy, below). In Scotland, it is often known simply as bluebell. It is the floral emblem of Sweden where it is known as small bluebell.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It produces its violet-blue, bell-shaped flowers in late summer and autumn.

The Latin specific epithet rotundifolia means "round leaved".<ref name=RHSLG>Template:Cite book</ref> This refers to the basal leaves; not all leaves are round in shape, with middle and upper stem leaves being linear.<ref name=Stace>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Description

Campanula rotundifolia is a slender, prostrate to erect herbaceous perennial, 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.<ref name=Stevensetal/> The inflorescence is a panicle or raceme, with one to 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 Template:Convert long and five long, pointed green sepals behind them. Plants with pale pink or white flowers may also occur.<ref name=Stevensetal/> The petal lobes are triangular and curve outwards. The seeds are produced in a capsule about Template:Convert 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 Campanula species, 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.<ref name=Stevensetal/><ref name=Blamey>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp<ref name=Jeffree1960>Template:Cite journal</ref> The flowers are pollinated by bees, but can self-pollinate.

Taxonomy

Campanula rotundifolia was first formally described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus. Template:As of, no varieties or subspecies of Campanula rotundifolia are accepted in Plants of the World Online (POWO).<ref name="POWO">Template:Cite POWO</ref> Several species have been previously described as varieties or subspecies of C. rotundifolia:

• Campanula alaskana (Campanula rotundifolia var. alaskana, C. r. var. hirsuta)<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> - Alaskan bellflower; Alaska, northwestern Canada
• Campanula giesekiana (C. r. var. dubia, C. r. var. groenlandica)<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> - Giesecke's harebell; eastern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, northwest Russia
• Campanula intercedens (C. r. var. dentata, C. r. var. intercedens)<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> - intermediate bellflower; eastern Canada, northeastern United States
• Campanula kladniana (C. r. subsp. kladniana);<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> Romania, Ukraine
• Campanula macrorhiza (C. r. var. aitanica, C. r. var. alcoiana);<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> France (including Corsica), Italy, Spain
• Campanula moravica (C. r. subsp. moravica);<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> eastern Europe
• Campanula nejceffii (C. r. var. bulgarica);<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> central Bulgaria
• Campanula petiolata (C. r. var. petiolata)<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> - western harebell; western North America
• Campanula ruscinonensis (C. r. var. ruscinonensis);<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> eastern Pyrenees in southern France and northeastern Spain
• Campanula willkommii (C. r. subsp. willkommii);<ref>Template:Cite POWO</ref> Sierra Nevada in southern Spain

Although POWO and World Flora Online (WFO)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> accept these as separate species, many other sources do not. For example both the Database of Vascular Plants of Canada (VASCAN) and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service PLANTS database (PLANTS) do not accept any of these species as valid or even regard them as valid subspecies.<ref name="vascan" /><ref name="USDA" /> This is also the case with authoritative floras such as Flora of Colorado.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

While it is now commonly known as harebell or bluebell, it was historically known by several other names including blawort, hair-bell, lady's thimble, witch's bells, and witch's thimbles.<ref>Template:Citation</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Elsewhere in Britain, "bluebell" refers to Hyacinthoides non-scripta, and in North America, "bluebell" typically refers to species in the genus Mertensia, such as Mertensia virginica (Virginia bluebells).

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Distribution and habitat

Following the POWO database, Campanula rotundifolia occurs from Iceland south through Great Britain and Ireland to Spain, and east across Europe and Asia to the Pacific coast of Russia and northeastern China, but absent from North America.<ref name="POWO"/> Some other European authors also accept its occurrence in Spitzbergen,<ref name=Stevensetal>Template:Cite journal</ref> and the southern coasts of Greenland.<ref name=DVF>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Some sources and authorities like the VASCAN and PLANTS do not currently separate out different species for North America.<ref name=vascan>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=vascangenus>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=USDA>Template:PLANTS</ref> If using these sources it is widely distributed through North America including all of Canada and most of the United States.

It occurs as tetraploid or hexaploid populations in Britain and Ireland, but diploids occur widely in continental Europe.<ref name=McAllister>McAllister, H. A. (1973). The experimental taxonomy of Campanula rotundifolia L. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Glasgow</ref> 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.<ref name=Stevensetal/>

Harebells grow in dry, nutrient-poor grasslands and heaths. The plant often successfully colonises cracks in walls or cliff faces and stable dunes.<ref name=Stevensetal/>

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.<ref>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).</ref>

In Iceland, research on Campanula rotundifolia has revealed that it is a host of at least three species of pathogenic fungi, Coleosporium tussilaginis, Puccinia campanulae and Sporonema campanulae (and the teleomorph Leptotrochila radians).<ref Name="HH&GGE2004">Helgi Hallgrímsson & Guðríður Gyða Eyjólfsdóttir (2004). Íslenskt sveppatal I - smásveppir [Checklist of Icelandic Fungi I - Microfungi. Fjölrit Náttúrufræðistofnunar. Náttúrufræðistofnun Íslands [Icelandic Institute of Natural History]. ISSN 1027-832X</ref>

In culture

The harebell is dedicated to Saint Dominic.Template:Citation needed

In 2002 Plantlife named it the county flower of Yorkshire in the United Kingdom.<ref>Plantlife website County Flowers page Template:Webarchive</ref>

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.<ref>William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (iv. 2), Arviragus speech</ref><ref group=note>In Jessica Kerr's and Opelia Dowden's Shakespeare's Flowers published in 1970 they infer that Shakespeare was actually making reference to Hyacinthoides non-scripta.</ref>

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.<ref>Christina G Rossetti, A Nursery Rhyme Book, Macmillan and Co., London, New York (1893)</ref>

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<ref>Emily Dickinson, Did the Harebell loose her girdle, Volume: Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, first published in 1955</ref>