BELLFLOWER. 
hedges in Great Britain. Its root is roundish or 
spindle-shaped, fleshy, white, milky, and sweet, 
with a bitterish pungency ; it was formerly cul- 
tivated for the table, in England and very exten- 
sively in France, and eaten both raw and vari- 
ously cooked ; and it acquires great improvement 
in flavour, and increases in size, from cultivation. 
Its stems are erect, and about two feet high ; its 
leaves are oblong, spear-shaped, and placed alter- 
nately + and its small flowers are either blue or 
white, stand upright close to the stem toward 
its upper part, and appear in July and August. 
The peach-leaved bellflower, Campanula perst- 
cifolia, is a native of the northern parts of Eu- 
rope, and was introduced to Great Britain toward 
the close of the 16th century. It is a perennial, 
and very hardy, and grows to the height of three 
feet. Its root consists of many fibres; its stem 
is angular or channeled, stiff, and variously gar- 
nished; its leaves near the root are long, oval, 
stiff, and without any regular order; its leaves 
on the stem are longer and narrower than the 
root leaves, and slightly indented on the edge ; 
and its flowers are produced on short footstalks 
toward the upper part of the stem. The flowers of 
the cultivated varieties have either a fine blue 
or a dazzling white colour, and measure upwards 
of an inch in width; and both double and semi- 
double ones have long been so common as to 
occasion the single-flowering varieties to be ne- 
glected. The principal varieties are the common 
peach-leaved, the largest peach-leaved, the large- 
flowered, the white-flowered, the double blue- 
flowered, and the double white-flowered. Any of 
the varieties can be easily propagated by dividing 
the roots in autumn. 
The nettled bellflower, Campanula urticifolia, 
and the bellflower called throatwort, Campanula 
trachelium, are pretty generally regarded as one 
species; yet the former, whether viewed as a 
separate species or as a mere variety, 1s a native 
principally of Germany, while the latter is indi- 
genous in the wovuds of Great Britain. Throat- 
wort receives both its popular and its specific 
botanic name from its reputed medicinal power 
in diseases of the throat, decoctions of it, which 
are bitter and somewhat acrid, having long been 
used as gargles. Its root is perennial; its stems 
are stiff, angular, and hairy, and are ramified 
into a few short side-branches; its pubes or hairs 
are sometimes as pungent as those of the nettle, 
but never so venomous; its leaves are oblong, 
pointed, hairy, and deeply serrated; and its flowers 
come out alternately on short trifid footstalks, 
are somewhat deeply cut into many acute seg- 
ments, enjoy the same kind of reputation for 
double conformation, with both white and blue 
colours, as those of the peach-leaved bellflower, 
and usually bloom during July and August. The 
double varieties are easily propagated by dividing 
the roots. 
The pyramidal bellflower, Campanula pyramid- 
als, is a native of Carniola, and was introduced 
to Great Britain toward the close of the 16th 
century. It is perennial rooted, usually grows 
to the height of about four feet, and has long 
been regarded as eminently ornamental. Its 
root is thick, tuberous, and milky ; three or four 
stems usually rise from one root, and are strong, 
smooth, upright, and garnished with smooth, 
oblong leaves, whose edges are a little indented ; 
and its flowers are large, open, and bell-shaped, 
and are produced from the side of the stems, 
over more than one half of their length, so as to 
form a sort of floral pyramid. One variety car- 
ries white flowers, and another pale blue flowers ; 
and the latter is by far the most esteemed. This 
plant is cultivated to adorn halls, and to he placed, 
while in flower, before chimneys; and it is better 
adapted for these purposes than any other flow- 
ering herb; for when its root is strong, four or 
five stems rise from it to the height of four or 
five feet, sending out flowering side-branches, 
and capable, along with these branches, of being 
spread out like a huge fan upon a frame of slender 
sticks, there to produce an absolute sheet of flow- 
ers so large as to screen the whole face of a chim- 
ney. If kept from rain and sunshine, the flowers 
continue long in beauty; but a plant treated in 
this manner is seldom in good condition in a 
second season, and requires to be succeeded by a 
new plant. 
wanted, they must be raised from seeds. 
Another well known and commonly cultivated 
species is that called Canterbury bells, Campan- 
ula media. It is biennial, and of various height, 
and includes several varieties, particularly a deep 
blue and a snowy white; and its flowers, though 
somewhat coarse in texture, are large in size and 
very beautiful in form.—The best known annual 
kinds, including that which is popularly known 
as Venus’ Looking-Glass, now belong to the genus | 
Prismatocarpus.—A very common and popularly | 
admired species is the clustered bellflower, Cam- 
panula glomerata. It is a perennial, and a native 
of the chalky soils of England ; it grows variously 
to the height of one foot and two feet; and it has 
its name from its carrying small heads or clusters 
of bell-shaped flowers on long naked footstalks, from 
the upper part of the stem. The normal plant 
has violet flowers; but varieties have long been 
cultivated with white and double white flowers ; 
and several hybrids are now in cultivation,— 
particularly four, called the tall white, the pale 
flowered, the lilac flowered, and the tall blue.— 
The other species which are at present most 
common in gardens—all hardy and perennial— 
are those designated grandiflora, cenesia, grandis, 
bellardi, pulla, sarmatica, pumila, and pubescens. 
BELLIS. See Darsy. 
BELL-WETHER. A sheep which has a bell 
on its neck, and which leads the flock. 
_ BELLY. The abdomen. A wound in the belly 
of a cow or other domestic animal, is sometimes 
Propagation is easily and rapidly | 
‘effected from offsets; but, if first-rate plants are 
a very serious accident. See the article Wounps. 
