CORONARIE^ 329 



habit is recalled in the English name (and the second 

 feature in the Latin specific name). Who can fail 

 to be moved by the eloquent beauty of a wood car- 

 petted with a sheet of Bluebells in early spring ? 

 Such loveliness on so grand a scale must impress the 

 smallest soul. The Bluebell of Scotland is the 

 Harebell, which is equally beautiful. 



There are few districts in the British Isles where 

 Bluebells do not grow. But they are less widespread 

 and abundant than formerly owing to the devastation 

 wrought, in the main by the hawker, upon them. 

 They are to be met with from the extreme north of 

 Scotland to Cornwall, and in Ireland; and the Channel 

 Islands. In the Lake District they grow at 1500 ft. 

 or more. 



Woodlands are the favourite habitat of the Bluebell, 

 but they are to be met with on open hillsides, heaths, 

 in hedgebanks, and by the wayside. Bluebells grow 

 on clays and loams in damp oakwoods, on sandy soil 

 in dry sandy oakwoods. They are found in the Oak- 

 Birch heath association, on siliceous soils in sessile 

 oakwoods, and with bracken on siliceous grassland. 



Like other bulbous plants the Bluebell has a 

 rosette of radical leaves and an erect leafless scape 

 or flowering stem. The bulb is white and contains 

 a sticky juice. The leaves are broad, linear, more 

 or less acute, hollowed. 



The scape is solitary, tall, stout, angular. The 

 flowers are deep blue, in a terminal, drooping raceme, 

 one-sided. The flowers also are drooping. There is 



