CANADIAN HAREBELL. Campanula Rotundifolia.
Reading edition
“With drooping bells, of purest blue
Thou didst attract my childish view,
Almost resembling
The azure butterflies that flew,
Where ’mid the heath thy blossoms grew,
So lightly trembling.”
HE same charming writer has also called the Harebell “the Flower of Memory,” and truly the sight of these fair flowers, when found in lonely spots in Canada, has carried one back in thought to the wild heathery moors or sylvan lanes of the mother country.
“I think upon the heathery hills
I ae hae lo’ed sae dearly;
I think upon the wimpling burn
That wandered by sae clearly.”
But sylvan wooded lanes, and heathery moorlands are not characters of our Canadian scenery, and if we would seek the Harebell, we shall find it on the dry gravelly banks of lakes or rivers, or rocky islets, for these are its native haunts.
Although, in colour and shape of the blossom, the Canadian flower resembles the British one, it is more robust in its growth, less fragile—the flower stems being stouter, and the foot-stalk or pedicel stiffer and less pendulous, and yet sufficiently graceful. The root leaves, which are not very conspicuous during its flowering season, are round, heart-shaped. Those of the flower-stem are numerous, narrow and pointed. This pretty flower is variable in colour and foliage. Its general flowering season is July and August.
The corolla is bell-shaped or campanulate; 5 cleft; calyx lobes, awl shaped, persistent on the seed vessel; stamens 5, style 1, stigmas 2; seed vessel several celled and many seeded; in height the plant varies from a few inches to a foot; number of flowers varying from a few to many.
We have but three known species in Canada, Campanula Americana, “a large handsome species being found in Western Canada;”[5] and C. aparinoides. The rough-leaved Bellflower is found in marshes and in thickets where the soil is poor but the atmosphere moist; it is of a climbing or rather clinging habit; the weak slender stem, many branched, laying hold of the grasses and low shrubs that surround it for support, which its rough teeth enable it to do very effectually; in habit it resembles the smaller Galium, or Lady’s bedstraw. The delicate bell-shaped flowers are marked with fine purple lines within, at the base of the white corolla. The leaves of this species are narrow-linear, rough, with minutely-toothed hairs; the flowers are few, and fade very quickly. The name campanula is from campana, a bell.
The Harebell has often formed the theme of our modern poets, as illustrative of grace and lightness. In the Lady of the Lake we have this pretty couplet when describing Ellen:
“E’en the light Harebell raised its head,
Elastic from her airy tread.”
Our Artist has availed herself of the Canadian Harebell to give airy lightness to her group of natives flowers.
Nat. Ord. Orchidaceæ.