Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Bristly Bellflower is an erect short-lived introduced and invasive perennial plant of 1 to 2 feet height with a densely hairy stem.

The leaves are of two types - basal and stem. The larger basal leaves are of an oval to lanceolate shape, with tapered bases and long-stalked. The stem leaves are lance shaped, have hairy wavy edges and are without stalks (sessile). The margins have fine hair and the leaf underside is paler in color with long whitish hairs on the veins.

The inflorescence is a terminal cluster of 15 to 20 stalkless flowers. Clusters also appear at the upper leaf axils but may have fewer flowers. Flowers are surrounded by hairy green leafy bracts.

The flowers are 5-parted, bell shaped with a dark violet blue to purplish blue corolla with the 5 petals united near the base and the obtuse tips spreading outward forming the flange of the bell. The calyx is green, hairy, with 5 lobes that have pointed tips. There are five stamens with yellow anthers that are held toward the back of the corolla while the single style with its 3-parted stigma is exserted beyond the lobes of the corolla. Leaf-like small hairy bracts appear among the flowers in the cluster.

Seed: Fertile flowers produce a dry seed pod that contains several brown ovoid, but slightly flattened, seeds that have a slight ridge on the sides which helps with wind dispersion when the pod opens. Seed of the Campanulas usually requires at least 30 days of cold stratification plus light for germination.

Habitat: Bristly Bellflower is a plant of the north temperate zones of Eurasia. It grows in woodlands, dry grasslands and uplands where it is not too moist. It needs at least partial sun, but plants may become top heavy without full sun. It adapts to various soils but prefers calcareous. The root system is a fleshy taproot with associated stolons that spread and cause the plant to form colonies in the right conditions. It is considered invasive but not as invasive as the European Bellflower, C. rapunculoides.

Names: The genus name Campanula is derived from the Latin campana, meaning 'little bell'. The Campanula genus is home to many plants with bell shaped flowers. The author name of the plant classification, 'L.', refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy.

Comparisons: A look-a-like species is Clustered Bellflower, C. glomerata. There the plant is much less hairy, and the leaves are broader (comparison photo below). The American Bellflower (Campanulastrum americanum) blooms in the Woodland Garden. This species is taller with light blue-violet petals that spread widely forming a star shape on a tall raceme, but not in clusters. In the Upland Garden will be found European Bellflower, C. rapunculoides, where the flowers are also spread out individually on a tall raceme. They have larger corollas and are partially nodding. Two smaller species have similar bell-shaped flowers but the plants have a much different structure with the flowers solitary or in in groups of 2 or 3: Harebell, C. rotundifolia, and Marsh Bellflower, C. aparinoides. See comparison photos below.