IV 



ON BELL-FLOWERS (CAMPANULAS) AND CANTERBURY 

 BELLS AS BEAUTIFUL BORDER PLANTS 



THERE is better ground for the popular name of the 

 Campanulas than there is for many of the English names 

 which are given to plants. Here, the popular and the 

 botanical names are associated. Campanula comes from 

 campana, a bell, and is, indeed, one of those endearing 

 diminutives which the Latin races love, meaning " little 

 bell." It flows softly from the tongue however it is 

 accented, and lingers on the ear with a memory of the 

 tinkle of sheep bells on Alpine slopes. The pronuncia- 

 tion is Cam-pan'-u-la. Repeat it, lingeringly Cam-pan- 

 u-la-a-a-a. How sweetly it falls, suggesting song ! 



But the poets have not dealt kindly with the Cam- 

 panulas. Shakespeare does not mention them. Does 

 some alert and swift-moving reader bound to his shelves 

 and, first shaking a protesting finger at me, then point it 

 to Act iv. scene 2 of Cymbeline, where Arviragus cries : 



" With fairest flowers 



While summer lasts and I live here, Fidele, 

 111 sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shalt not lack 

 The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose, nor 

 The azured Harebell, like thy veins, no, nor 

 The leaf of Eglantine. ..." 



I reply that the Harebell of Shakespeare was not our 

 Harebell, Campanula rotundifolia, but the Wild Hyacinth, 

 Scilla nutans, which is often called Bluebell. 



