Bell Flower : Photos, Diagrams & Topos : SummitPost

Comments

PAROFES - Nov 27, 2013 7:36 am - Voted 10/10

I may be wrong Gangolf, but

Isn't that a kikiô (japanese name for it) flower?
(Platycodon grandiflorus)

I have a photo of one, look and tell me what u think:
http://www.summitpost.org/cool-beetle-over-a-i-platycodon-grandiflorus-i/839268/c-646877

Cheers!
Parofes

Gangolf Haub - Nov 28, 2013 5:41 am - Hasn't voted

Re: I may be wrong Gangolf, but

I actually don't think so. Yours is broader and shorter. Also, this flower is so common in the Alps that I don't think it has been imported from Japan. Colours are very similar, though.

PAROFES - Nov 28, 2013 7:13 am - Voted 10/10

Re: I may be wrong Gangolf, but

Yeah, you're probably right, it was a long shot hehe
Nice flower anyway!
Cheers
Paulo

rgg - Nov 28, 2013 8:06 am - Voted 10/10

Re: I may be wrong Gangolf, but

I agree, it's a nice one indeed.

I'm pretty sure it's the alpine bellflower, Campanula alpina. Like Gangolf, I've seen it in quite a lot of different places in the eastern Alps.

With the same flower shape, there is some variation in the colors that I've come across. By far the most common one is this color, bright blue, but I've seen really pale blue ones, almost white even, and some that were purple. A different color may well mean it's a different Campanula species than C. alpina, or a cross between two of them.

Earlier, during my attempts to determine which flowers I had photographed, I learned that there are lots of other Campanula species, with different shapes, but C. alpina is the one I've seen most.

I didn't know the Platycodon, so I looked it up in Wikipedia (see Platycodon grandiflorus). Like the alpine bellflower, it belongs to the family Campanulaceae, but the Platycodon lives in eastern Asia. And the shape of the flower looks a bit different too: more open, less elongated than C. alpina.

to post!