Bluebells at Goblin Combe [Photograph: Pat Gilbert, Friends of Trendlewood Park]If primroses and cowslips are our favourite flowers of early Spring, then it is the bluebells that steal our hearts in early Summer. On a sunny day, they dust the floor of the wood in a blue mist.
Many poets have written in wonder of them. Alfred, Lord Tennyson may have walked the bluebell woods above nearby Clevedon Court with his friend Arthur Hallam. Tennyson compared a carpet of bluebells to “the blue sky, breaking up through the earth”.
Bluebells are important plants in woods. About 50% of the world’s population of English bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) is found in the United Kingdom. This is largely due to the UK’s relatively mild climate and our widespread ancient woodlands, where bluebells thrive.
But all is not as it seems, because the English bluebell is threatened by a rival Spanish bluebell, (Hyacinthoides hispanica), which was introduced in the 17th and 18th Centuries into formal gardens in large country houses.
English bluebell in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram] The flowers of English bluebells are deep violet-blue, bell-shaped tubes with petals that roll upwards. They are found mostly on one side of a curving stem, so that the flowers droop downwards. Often they have a strong sweet scent.
Spanish bluebell in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neill Ingram]The rival Spanish bluebell has paler flowers that are found all round the stem, not just on one side. The petals are not as curved back as the English bluebell. The stems are thicker and more upright and the leaves are much broader than the English bluebell.
Spanish bluebells. [photograph: Neil Ingram, Nowhere Wood]These two species are closely related and can breed together to produce plants that can breed with each other and with both parents. These are the hybrids. So, what we find is that in most English woods we get a range of bluebells, some of which resemble the English and Spanish types as well as many plants that have characteristics of both types.
Recent research suggests that most of the bluebells in UK woods are hybrids and the pure English forms are restricted to very old woodlands that have little human interference. Certainly the ones bought from garden centres are probably hybrids.
However, the good news is that the English bluebell is thriving in these remote woodlands and is likely to survive, as long as we leave them alone!
Does it matter if the traditional population of English bluebells is gradually replaced by a hybrid form of English-Spanish bluebell. What do you think?
