Field of Science

English bluebells from Brooklyn

English bluebells are very different from our bluebells; the only similarity is that both are a blue and nodding bell-shaped flowers.  These are a hyacinth-like flower (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) that flower later than our native bluebells, and are among our later bulbs.  Mrs. Phactor first saw a huge display of these covering an area of a few acres under some huge oak trees at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden on our first botanical geek tour.  Since then she has been waging war on the lily-of-the-valley under a burr oak and replacing them with English bluebells.  This is a minerature re-creation of the display at the BBG.  These might have been the FFF except that a new magnolia flowered.  Stage three of this project will be planted this fall.

2 comments:

@awomanonabike said...

Your bluebells look wonderful but I don't think they're English bluebells, they look more like Spanish or hybrid ones. There's a really good page here for bluebell identification: Exploring British wildlife: bluebells | Natural History Museum http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/british-natural-history/survey-bluebells/index.html

The Phytophactor said...

Yes, that's quite likely correct. Even worse, not shown are about 12 plants bought locally as "bluebells" to fill in a blank spot, and all 12 have white flowers!