Erect, hairy stems topped with tight heads of upward-facing violet-blue funnels on chalk grassland, in summer
Clustered bellflower, Campanula glomerata.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Clustered bellflower
Native · flowers summer · chalk and limestone grassland, scrub edges and verges
Campanula glomerata — Campanulaceae
Clustered bellflower is a downland wildflower whose upright, deep violet-blue funnels are packed in a tight terminal head, unlike the nodding, single bells of the harebell. It grows on chalk and limestone grassland, and its natural stronghold is the calcareous grassland of southern and eastern England. Its name, glomerata, means clustered, and it is also a parent of many garden bellflowers.
How to spot them
- ▸Dense, rounded heads of upright, violet-blue, funnel-shaped flowers 1.5–2.5 cm long, in a tight cluster at the top, with a few clustered lower down
- ▸Hairy, rough, oval leaves with a heart-shaped or clasping base; the upper leaves are stalkless
- ▸Stiff, erect stems 15–45 cm tall on chalk and limestone banks, grassland and scrub edges
- ▸Flowers face upwards, not nodding
- ▸Look-alikes: harebell (Campanula rotundifolia), which has slender stems, nodding single pale-blue bells and thread-like stem leaves; and round-headed rampion, which has round heads of narrow, claw-like flowers, on downland
How to know it
The specific name means 'clustered', in contrast to the nodding single bells of a relative that grows on the same short turf
Campanula glomerata; the relative is the harebell.
On Kent's Ranscombe Farm reserve, this blue flower grows on chalk grassland with common rock-rose and wild liquorice
Clustered bellflower — Plantlife.
Its downland neighbour, a Sussex county flower in the same family, has round blue heads of narrow tubular flowers rather than bell-shaped ones
The neighbour is round-headed rampion; this is clustered bellflower.
A member of Campanulaceae that has been used as a garden perennial, cultivars such as 'Superba' descend from this British plant
Clustered bellflower — RHS.
Broad, hairy, half-clasping stem leaves and upward-pointing violet funnels in a tight head separate it from a slender relative with nodding pale bells and thread-like leaves
Clustered bellflower; the relative is the harebell.
Quick-fire facts
- •Native perennial of calcareous grassland, scrub edges and road verges, mainly in southern and eastern England
- •Family Campanulaceae, the bellflower family, which also includes harebell, round-headed rampion and Canterbury bells
- •Campanula is Latin for 'little bell'; glomerata means 'clustered'
- •Flowers face upward and are tightly clustered, unlike the nodding bells of the harebell
- •Grows on chalk grassland with common rock-rose and wild liquorice, as at Plantlife's Ranscombe Farm reserve in Kent
- •The RHS describes it as a vigorous, rhizomatous perennial to about 45 cm with dense terminal racemes of deep violet-blue flowers
- •Garden cultivars such as 'Superba' are widely grown, but the wild plant is declining as unimproved grassland is lost
- •Not a protected plant, but a marker of chalk grassland with a long history
Drill it — 7 cards
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Sources
- Royal Horticultural Society — Campanula glomerata (clustered bellflower)
- Plantlife — Ranscombe Farm Nature Reserve