Gerard's Herbal - Part 2
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| Fig. 682. Peach-Leaved Bell-Flower (1) |
Fig. 683. Steeple Bell-Flower (2) |
The Description.
1. The Peach-Leaved Bell-Flower hath a great number of small and long leaves, rising in a great bush out of the ground, like the leaves of the Peach tree: among which riseth up a stalk two cubits high: alongst the stalk grow many flowers like bells sometimes white, and for the most part of a fair blue colour; but the bells are nothing so deep as they of the other kinds; and these also are more dilated or spread abroad than any of the rest. The seed is small like Rampions, and the root a tuft of laces or small strings.
2. The second kind of Bell-Flower hath a great number of fair bluish or watchet flowers, like the other last before mentioned, growing upon goodly tall stems two cubits and a half high, which are garnished from the top of the plant unto the ground with leaves like Beets, disorderly placed. This whole plant is exceeding full of milk, insomuch as if you do but break one leaf of the plant, many drops of a milky juice will fall upon the ground. The root is very great, and full of milk also: likewise the knops wherein the seed should be are empty and void of seed, so that the whole plant is altogether barren, and must be increased with slipping of his root.
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| Fig. 684. Round-Leaved Bell-Flower (3) |
Fig. 685. Yellow Bell-Flower (4) |
3. The small Bell-Flower hath many round leaves very like those of the common field Violet, spread upon the ground; among which rise up small slender stems, disorderly set with many grassy narrow leaves like those of flax. The small stem is divided at the top into sundry little branches, whereon do grow pretty blue flowers bell-fashion. The root is small and thready.
4. The yellow Bell-Flower is a very beautiful plant of an handful high, bearing at the top of his weak and tender stalks most pleasant flowers bell-fashion, of a fair and bright yellow colour. The leaves and roots are like the precedent, saving that the leaves that grow next to the ground of this plant are not so round as the former.
Fig. 686. Little White or Purple Bell-Flower (5, 6)
5. The Little White Bell-Flower is a kind of wild Rampions, as is that which followeth, and also the last save one before described. This small plant hath a slender root of the bigness of a small straw, with some few strings annexed thereto. The leaves are somewhat long, smooth, and of a perfect green colour, lying flat upon the ground: from thence rise up small tender stalks, set here and there with a few leaves. The flowers grow at the top, of a milk-white colour.
6. The other small Bell-Flower or wild Rampion differeth not from the precedent but only in colour of the flowers; for as the others are white, these are of a bright purple colour, which sets forth the difference.
7. Besides these here described, there is another very small and rare Bell-Flower, which hath not been set forth by any but only by Bauhin, in his Prodrom. under the title of Campanula cymbalaria foliis, and that fitly, for it hath thin and small cornered leaves much after the maner of Cymbalaria, and these are set without order on very small weak and tender stalks some handful long; and at the tops of the branches grow little small and tender Bell-Flowers of a blue colour. The root, like as the whole plant, is very small and thready. This pretty plant was first discovered to grow in England by Master George Bowles, Anno 1632, who found it in Montgomeryshire, on the dry banks in the high-way as one rideth from Dolgeogg a worshipful gentleman's house called Mr. Francis Herbert, unto a market town called Machynlleth, and in all the way from thence to the seaside. It may be called in English, The Tender Bell-Flower.
The Place.
The two first grow in our London gardens, and not wild in England.
The rest, except that small one with yellow flowers, do grow wild in most places of England, especially upon barren sandy heaths and such like grounds.
The Time.
These Bell-Flowers do flourish from May unto August.
The Names.
Their several titles set forth their names in English and Latin, which is as much as hath been said of them.
The Temperature and Virtues.
These Bell-Flowers, especially the four last mentioned, are cold and dry, and of the nature of Rampions, whereof they be kinds.
