Ontario Weeds: Creeping bellflower

Table of Contents

1. Name
2. Other Names
3. Family
4. General Description
   • Photos and Pictures
5. Stems and Roots
6. Flowers and Fruit
7. Habitat
8. Related Links

Name: Creeping bellflower, Campanula rapunculoides L.,

Other Names: Campanule fausse raiponce, Bellflower, Rover bellflower, campanule raiponce

Family: Harebell or Bellflower Family (Campanulacae) 

General Description: Perennial, reproducing by seed and by the extremely persistent, widely spreading, fleshy, whitish underground rhizomes and thickened storage tubers. Non-flowering plants are distinguished by their many heart-shaped, irregularly toothed leaves arising from at or below the ground surface, the whitish, fleshy, underground rhizomes and tubers; flowering plants have characteristic bell-shaped blue flowers with a 5-pointed rim, and their seedpods develop between corolla and main stem.

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Photos and Pictures

A. Mass of leaves covering the ground surface in early summer. B. Several leaves and shoots from underground roots. C. Spike of flowers in late summer.

Creeping bell flower. A. Stemless plant with cluster of radical leaves from upturned rhizome.

B. Basal leaves and short leafy stem from horizontal rhizome.

C. Top of flowering stem.

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Stems & Roots: Stems, when present, erect, up to 1 m (40 in.) high, smooth or finely hairy, usually without branches; leaves mostly arising singly or in clusters directly from rhizomes below the ground surface, these long-stalked and called "radical" leaves (root leaves); the blades round to nearly heart-shaped at the base, ovate, pointed towards the tip, irregularly toothed, usually finely hairy; leaves on developing stems alternate (1 per node), similar to radical leaves but stalks progressively shorter and blades smaller, less heart-shaped and more regularly toothed; uppermost leaves narrow and stalkless.

Flowers & Fruit: Flowers in elongating racemes at the ends of the stems, blue, bell-shaped, 2 - 3 cm (4/5 - 1¼ in.) across, ending in 5 uniform points; flower stalks frequently curved and giving the whole inflorescence an attractive 1-sided appearance; seedpods formed below the calyx and corolla, somewhat spherical containing many very fine seeds. Flowers from June until autumn.

Habitat: Creeping bellflower occurs throughout Ontario in lawns, gardens, fence lines, roadsides, waste places and occasionally in cultivated fields. It is sometimes planted in ornamental gardens but spreads into adjacent areas by underground rhizomes as well as by seed and is a very persistent weed.

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Related Links

... on general Weed topics
... on weed identification, order OMAFRA Publication 505: Ontario Weeds
... on weed control, order OMAFRA Publication 75: Guide To Weed Contro

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