CAMPANULA ROTUNDIFOLIA. 



BLUEBELL OF SCOTLAND. 



NATUKAI. OKDER, CAMVANULACE^. 



Campanula rotundifolia, Linna;us. — Slender, branching (five to twelve inches high), one 

 to ten-flowered ; root-leaves round-heart-shaped or ovate, mostly toothed or crenate, long- 

 petiolcd, early withering awav; stem-leaves nnmerous, linear or narrowly lanceolate, 

 entire, smooth ; calyx-lobes awl-shaped, varying from one third to two thirds the length of 

 the bright-blue corolla (which is six to nine lines long). (Gray's Mamial of the Botany of 

 the Northern United States. Sec also Wood's CUus-Book of Botany.) 



HE species to which this chapter is devoted is one of the 

 most interesting plants indigenous to America, — inter- 

 esting, not only on account of its historical and poetical associa- 

 tion, but also on account of the botanical lessons it affords. Its 

 family name, Campannla, is quite an old one, and Linna:;us, find- 

 ing this name in use when he reconstructed botany, simply 

 adopted it. Campanula is the diminutive of campana, an Ital- 

 ian word, and signifies a little bell. The name is quite appro- 

 priate, as the flowers of this family generally have a bell-shaped 

 character. The specific name of our species, rotuniiifolia, or 

 round-leaved, seems to us to be also very appropriate, although 

 there is scarcely a modern botanist who does not feel it neces- 

 sary to ehter a protest against it. The name refers to the very 

 characteristic root-leaves of the plant (shown in Fig. 4), which 

 are seen only in spring and fall, and the protests alluded to are 

 based on the transient nature of these leaves. Thus Nuttall 

 writes in iSiS: "It was called Campanula dccipicns by Persoon, 

 and well named dccipicns by him, for there are very seldom any 

 round leaves to be seen on the plant"; and Dr. Gray says, in 

 the work from which we have taken our botanical description : 



