Bluebell......facts and fables

The Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) - part of the Lily family, has got to be one of our most evocative flowers. In fact, when Plantlife did the County Flower survey a few years ago - people could vote for the flower they wanted to represent their County - overall the Bluebell was actually voted as England's flower if I recall correctly. There is nothing more wonderful than a stroll through a wood carpeted with Bluebells in Spring. Indeed, it is said that the wife of Hamada, a well-known Japanese potter, used to come to England every year just for the sight.

If you do take such a stroll then take care to keep to the path - it is not the picking of the flowers that kills the plant it is the crushing of the leaves, which feed the bulbs. Bluebells are one indicator plant of ancient woodland and are protected under the law - Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and countryside Act 1981.

Bluebells often hybridise with the Hybrid Bluebell (a garden plant) or the very vigorous Spanish Bluebell but there is no mistaking the true Bluebell with its classic drooping long dark blue trumpets (as above). A hybrid is shown below and these sub-species can often have pink or white flowers.

The plant has no edible or medicinal uses - a previous Latin name for the Bluebell was Scilla non-scripta, Scilla being derived from the Greek, Skyllo, meaning to annoy, referring to the bulbs being poisonous. However, William Turner, in his herbal (published in 1568) reported that, "The boyes in Northumberland scrape the roots of the herbe and glew [glue] theyr [their] arrows and bokes [!] with that slime that they scrape off." Bluebell bulbs also provided starch for stiffening the ruffs favoured by men and women in Elizabethan times (Elizabeth I, 1558-1603).

The Victorians believed that the Bluebell blossomed on 23rd April, St George's Day, and that its flower was as blue as the ocean, over which Britain ruled.

In Scotland, they use the term Bluebell for an entirely different plant - the Harebell (Campanula Rotundifolia) - see below. In certain parts of Scotland it was called "The aul' [old] man's bell" and was, for reasons unknown to me, regarded with a sort of dread and left un-pulled.