54 
Dicotyledons with Gamopetalous Flowers . 
Natural Order 
CAMPANULACEAL Tab. 44. 
Diagnosis. —Herbs, rarely shrubs or climbers, with milky juice, usually 
alternate leaves and regular bell-shaped flowers. Stamens epigynous, as 
many as corolla-lobes and alternate with them. Ovary inferior, 2 or more- 
celled, with numerous ovules. 
Distribution.—A considerable and widely-dispersed Natural Order, most numerous in the North 
Temperate zone and at the Cape of Good Hope. 
Number of British Genera, 3; Species, 12. 
Calyx adherent, with a 5-lobed limb ; in Canterbury-bell ( Campanula Medium) with supplementary segments, 
from the intervals between the calyx-lobes, sharply reflexed and concealing the ovary. 
COROLLA epigynous, bell-shaped (campanulate) or tubular, often deeply divided into 5 segments, valvate in aestivation. 
Stamens free ; anthers discharging their pollen before expansion of the corolla; in Sheep’s-bit (Jasione) with 
the anthers cohering at the base. 
Style with longitudinal rows of ultimately retractile hairs, as in Campanula, which collect the pollen from the 
anthers and expose it after the fading of the latter to be transported by insects to the stigmas of other flowers. 
Fruit a many-seeded capsule, dehiscing variously. 
Seeds albuminous. 
USES, &c.—-The fleshy root of Garden Rampion ( Campanula Rapunculus) is an esculent occasionally 
cultivated in Britain, but the Order generally abounds in a more or less acrid juice. Very few are turned to 
economic account. Several species, however, are favourite ornamental garden plants, as Canterbury-bell and other 
species of Campanula, Venus’ Looking-glass (Specularia\ Cdnarina and Musschia; the two latter genera peculiar 
to the Canary Islands. 
