The Bellflower Family
What are they?
The bellflowers form the bulk of the family Campanulaceae and are covered on their own page. This page covers other members of the bellflower family, which form a rather varied group of mostly low, creeping or trailing, plants with blue or blue-purple flowers.
Where are they found?
This is quite a diverse bunch of plants and habitat choice can be useful in the identification process. Some are of garden origin and may be found growing in urban environments, especially from cracks in walls and pavements. Others may turn up on waste ground, grassy places or roadsides. Our native species are plants of arable farmland and acidic grasslands.
Identification
Most species can be identified by a combination of flower shape (especially how deeply divided the petals are) and leaf shape, as well as the overall appearance of the plant - whether it is upright or trailing, single-stemmed or forming colonies.
Sheep's-bit Jasione montana
Native in acid grassland. Very local in East Anglia, being mostly confined to Breckland and coastal dunes and heaths. Flowers May to September. A tiny plant that may be easily overlooked in rough grass but for its button of bright blue, five-petalled flowers, carried in a tightly clustered head. Be careful not to confuse this tiny species with the much larger scabiouses, which have somewhat similar flowerheads.
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Common Venus's-looking-glass Legousia hybrida
Native. Widespread on poorer soils, mostly in Norfolk and the west of the region. Found as an annual on field margins and cultivated land. Flowers May to August. A tiny and easily overlooked plants with violet flowers, 2-3mm across, that open in full sun.
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Fairy Lobelia Lobelia erinus
Introduced from South Africa as a garden annual and commonly grown as a trailing plant in hanging baskets or in its compact forms as annual bedding. Regularly found self-seeding into pavement cracks and disturbed ground. Flowers May to October or until first frosts. Tiny but very show plants, grown in a wide range of blues, purple/pinks and white.
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Blue Star Creeper Lobelia pedunculata
Introduced from Australia as a garden ornamental and now appearing at scattered places throughout the region, though mostly in cultivated lawns where it does not get recorded in botanical atlas projects. Flowers July to September. A tiny, creeping perennial that may easily go unnoticed until the bright, pale bluish-mauve flowers appear. Very similar to Lobelia angulata (which is in cultivation but not yet recorded as a garden escape in East Anglia) but differs from that species in its hairy leaves.
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Showy Isotome Lithotoma axillaris
Introduced from Australia as a garden ornamental and starting to appear in the region from 2022, where self-seeding in urban environments. Flowers July to October. A loose and rather sprawly, annual species with raggedly lobed leaves and pale blue flowers with a long, tubular base.
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