Summer Flowers of the High Alps

The photograph gives a good general idea of the tufted growth of the Dwarf Bell-flower. The plant is quite small, rarely more than 3 or 4 inches high, and forms dense close-growing tufts of some size. The smooth or hairy flower-stalks bear one to six pale blue flowers and the narrow leaves, which are most numerous and have serrated edges below. There are also short flowerless branches covered with similar leaves, and a few broader leaves with longer stalks grow directly from the root stock. These last are not well seen in the photograph. The plant is very abundant in dry rocky and sandy places, in dried up torrent-beds, by the roadside and on the tops of walls. It is found from the lower mountain region up to some 8000 feet, and descends with some of the rivers towards the plains. It is also found in the Jura and parts of the Black Forest.

The Dwarf Bell-flower will be recognised from most of the other species of Campanula which abound in Switzerland by its broad basal leaves, its narrow stem leaves, and its erect seed pod. But, unfortunately, there are three other Swiss species to which this description equally well applies. Of these the rare Campanula excisa is at once picked out by the deep rounded clefts between the five segments of its bell-shaped flower. Campanula Scheuchzeri is a larger plant of more open and less tufted growth and with fewer flowerless leafy shoots. Its bell-shaped flowers are usually of a darker blue, are more conical, and have a wider opening; they are, in fact, less truly bell-shaped. Campanula rotundifolia, the common Hair-bell of our heaths and downs, which occurs also in Switzerland, is slightly taller than our plant and has also more cone-shaped flowers. Its flower buds are held erect, while those of the other three Bell-flowers we are considering are dependent. In a general way, the low stature and tufted growth of the Dwarf Bell-flower will, in most cases, suffice for its recognition.