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bluebell
(redirected from bluebells)

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bluebell, common name for several plants belonging to completely different classes, particularly the bellflower bellflower or bluebell, name commonly used as a comprehensive term for members of the Campanulaceae, a family of chiefly herbaceous annuals or perennials of wide distribution, characteristically found on dry slopes in temperate and subtropical
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 and the Virginia cowslip, or Virginia bluebell, of the family Boraginaceae (borage borage , common name for the Boraginaceae, a family of widely distributed herbs and some tropical shrubs or trees characterized by rough or hairy stems, four-part fruits, and usually fragrant blossoms.
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 family) and the wood hyacinth, a squill of the family Liliaceae (lily lily, common name for the Liliaceae, a plant family numbering several thousand species of as many as 300 genera, widely distributed over the earth and particularly abundant in warm temperate and tropical regions.
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 family). Bluebells of the former family are classified in the division Magnoliophyta Magnoliophyta , division of the plant kingdom consisting of those organisms commonly called the flowering plants, or angiosperms. The angiosperms have leaves, stems, and roots, and vascular, or conducting, tissue (xylem and phloem).
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, class Magnoliopsida, order Lamiales, while those of the latter are in the same division but in the class Liliatae, order Liliopsida.

bluebell

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Wild hyacinth (Endymion nonscriptus)
(credit: M.T. Tanton—The National Audubon Society Collection/Photo Researchers)
Any plant of the genus Endymion, in the lily family, native to Eurasia. Bluebell, or wild hyacinth (E. nonscriptus), and Spanish bluebell (E. hispanicus), bearing clusters of bell-shaped blue flowers, are cultivated as garden ornamentals; some authorities place them in the related genus Scilla of the same family. Many other plants are commonly known as bluebells, including species of the genera Campanula, Eustoma, Polemonium, and Clematis. In the U.S. the name bluebell is usually reserved for Mertensia virginica.


bluebell
1. a European liliaceous woodland plant, Hyacinthoides (or Endymion) non-scripta, having a one-sided cluster of blue bell-shaped flowers
2. a similar and related plant, hispanica, widely grown in gardens and becoming naturalized
3. a Scot name for harebell
4. any of various other plants with blue bell-shaped flowers

bluebell
symbol of loyalty. [Plant Symbolism: Flora Symbolica, 172]
See : Loyalty


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