Country life
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Photo: Bluebells by Chris Bean
Rolling out the blue carpet
By Lianne de Mello, Hampshire
& Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust
Our woodlands will soon be
are starting to put on their
spectacular spring displays of
carpets of bluebells.
Over the space of a few weeks in spring, from
mid April onwards, bluebells set our woodlands
ablaze with their bright blue flowers. The UK is
home to more than half the world’s population
of Hyacinthoides non-scripta, making the bluebell
our unofficial national flower, and their presence is
a sure sign of very old woodland. The Wildlife Trusts
care for hundreds of the finest bluebell woods, that
quintessential sign of the British spring.
Bluebells spend most of the year as bulbs
underground in ancient woodlands, only emerging
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to flower and leaf from April onwards. This early
spring flowering allows them to make the most of
the sunlight that is still able to make it to their forest
floor habitat and attracts the attention of plenty of
pollinating insects. Millions of bulbs may exist in one
bluebell wood, causing the blue carpets we so keenly
associate with spring, and new plants are sometimes
able to split off from these bulbs and grow as clones.
They’re wrapped up in folklore too; woodlands
were once threatening places, and legend has it that
bluebells would ring to summon fairies and goblins
to their springtime gatherings. Walking through a
carpet of bluebells was considered to be bad luck,
disturbing the array of spells. And be warned: if a
human hears the bluebell’s tinkling chimes, she will
fall under fairy enchantment and die!
Sadly, our native bluebell is losing ground to
an insidious competitor: the Spanish bluebell.