Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Wahlenbergia gloriosa
Common name
Royal bluebell
Family
Campanulaceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, alpine herbfields and grassland, roadsides, rocky sites, and moist sites, at high altitudes. South and east of the Hume Highway. Kosciuszko National Park, the mountains to the north, ACT, tablelands and ranges.
Notes
Perennial herb to 0.4 m high, with spreading rhizomes. Stems sprawling to erect, mostly unbranched, usually hairy to densely hairy towards the base, sometimes hairless. Leaves often mostly at the base of the plant, stem leaves mostly opposite each other, sometimes the upper leaves, rarely all leaves, alternating up the stems, 0.4–3.5 cm long, 1–15 mm wide, margins usually wavy, entire, or with small hardened teeth, surfaces hairless or the lower leaves hairy, tips blunt to pointed. Flowers purple to purplish violet, or deep blue, with a bell-shaped tube 2.5–8.5 mm long, and five lobes 11–25 mm long. Stigma usually with 2 lobes, sometimes 3. Flowers single. Flowering: summer-autumn.
Hybrids between Wahlenbergia gloriosa and Wahlenbergia stricta subsp. stricta have been recorded.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Wahlenbergia~gloriosa (accessed 8 February, 2021)
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