Flora of New Zealand Series

Bluebell

Fig. 23H

Clump-forming perennial, 15-45 cm high Bulb ± globose, 2-3 cm diam., scales papery, grey-brown. Leaves (15) -30-40- (60) × 0.7-2.5 cm, 5-6 from each bulb, slender at base, broader and flat above, narrowing ± abruptly at tip, margins glabrous. Flowers 1.5-2 cm long, blue, white, or heliotrope, ± campanulate, in few-flowered, ± erect racemes; pedicels curved, usually < flowers; bract and bracteole membranous, of same colour as flower; segments ± connate at base, Stamens inserted at 2 levels on perianth. Capsule c. 1.5 cm long, ovoid to globose.

N. Auckland City; Taranaki - Pukeiti, Egmont; Wellington - Palmerston North, Hutt Valley, Wellington City. S. Canterbury - near Rangiora, Christchurch, Burnham, Ashburton, Waimate; Westland - Hokitika, Okarito. Garden outcast on roadsides and grassy waste places.

(Europe)

First record: Healy 1958: 546

First collection: "Terrace End, Palmerston North, in grass on roadside, A. J. Healy 53/834, 19.8.1953, odd plants only: garden outcast" ().

FL. 9-10.

In Europe, the hybrid S. hispanica × non-scripta is also found, at times in greater numbers than the parent spp (Ooststroom and Reichgelt in Fl. Neerl. 1, 6, 1964, 132; Turrill Curtis' s Bot. Mag. 169, 1952, t. 176, f.3; Bond Watsonia 11, 1976, 141-2) Plants in N.Z. with wide leaves, many-flowered racemes hardly drooping at the tip, and long flower-pedicels may be this hybrid.