TEE HAREBELL. 79 



in intensity, and the flowers may at times be met with 

 pure white. The inflorescence is lax, and made up of but 

 few flowers. These ordinarily droop, though they are not 

 so distinctly pendulous as the flowers of a fuchsia, for 

 example, but strike off at all sorts of quaint angles from 

 the general line. The plant varies very much in height, 

 according to the situation in which it is met with from 

 an inch or two to about a foot. The stem often branches 

 a good deal. The segments of the calyx are very acute. 



The harebell is in Roman Catholic countries dedicated 

 to St. Dominic. Though so graceful a flower, it appears 

 but seldom in any poetical association in our literature. It 

 is the true " blue-bell of Scotland/'' though that name 

 has also been -bestowed on the wild hyacinth, a plant 

 already figured. Scotland is pre-eminently the land of the 

 mountain and the moor, and it is on just such spots as 

 these that the harebell flourishes, and where the wild 

 hyacinth would never be met with. The claim of the 

 former plant is therefore overwhelming. If we add to 

 this the fact that the harebell flowers throughout the 

 summer and autumn, while the wild hyacinth is but found 

 for a month or so in early spring, we have, we think, said 

 sufficient to show that those who make the harebell rather 

 than the other flower the blue-bell of Scottish poetry have 

 all the probabilities on their side. Grahame refers to the 

 plant in the lines 



" Nature gives a parting smile. 

 As yet the blue-bells linger on the sod 

 That copes the sheepfold ring ; and in the woods 

 A second blow of many flowers appears, 

 Flowers faintly tinged, and yielding no perfume." 



Ten species of the genus are met with in Britain. Of 



