BLUE AND PURPLE FLOWERS 
GROXJP VI 
Leaves alternate. Flowers with bell- or trumpet-shaped corolla, 
and flowers with five petals, or five-lobed corolla. 
Bluebells. Virginian Cowslip. Tree Lungwort (Mertensia 
virginica). Borage family. March to May. 
A perennial with stoutish stem a foot or two high, named for 
the German botanist Mertens. The flowers are blue, or blue- 
purple, about an inch long, in loose clusters (curled-up racemes) 
at end of stem (and in upper axils) ; calyx five-parted ; corolla 
(one inch) trumpet-shaped. The leaves are obtusely pointed, 
un toothed; those at root with stalks. This plant is found in 
meadows from Ontario south and west. It blooms in masses 
along the Biandywme in May. Another name is Pulmonaria 
virginica. The name Virginian Cowslip is given it in England, 
whereas the true English Cowslip {Primula veris) has an umbel 
of perhaps a dozen small yellow flowers, with crimson spots, 
at the top of a stem which rises from a cluster of root-leaves. 
It was of the Primula, not the Mertensia, that Milton wrote 
"... with cowslips wan that hang the pensive head." 
European Bell-flower ( Campanula rapuncidotdes) (from 
diminutive of campana, a bell). Bluebell family. 
July to September. 
An upright perennial with average height of about two feet; 
flower (one to one and one-half inches long) bell-shaped, pendu- 
lous, corolla one inch long. The upper leaves are egg-lance- 
shaped, the lower long-stalked, heart-shaped at base. There 
is some confusion of the terms bluebell and harebell. According 
to Grindon and to Nuttall the Campanula rotundifolia is the 
bluebell of Scotland. The Campanula rotundifolia (page 2 58) 
is our harebell, while the harebell of Shakespeare (" Cymbehne") 
was perhaps the Wild Hyacinth, referred to in the line: 
" The azured harebell, like thy veins." 
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