Touch Me Not
Peach-leaved Bellflower is one of the many plants that grow in natural oak/hornbeam woodlands, where it is found in the company of White Cinquefoil (Potentilla alba), Black Pea (Lathyrus niger), Wood Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum corymbosum), and Greater Stitch- wort (Stellaria holostea). Peach-leaved Bellflower is also found amid open shrub growth in hilly country, and is particularly abundant in therniophilous woods and forest margins.
Sometimes, however, it is only here and there that the broad blue bells are seen swaying in the breeze; it does not always occur in such numbers as to form continuous masses. This is a plant of mild climates, particularly abundant in central Europe, its numbers declining towards the boundaries of its range.
Originally growing only in Siberia and Mongolia it is now a weed throughout the whole of Europe, particularly in damp nitrogen-rich soils in the vicinity of human dwellings and in much the same places as Touch-me-not.
Terrestrial orchids – those which grow in the ground – are intimately linked to certain species of fungi and cannot be transplanted at will, not even with a large clump of soil.
The fungus does not survive the move, and so the orchid also dies. This is why attempts to grow orchids such as the Broad Helleborine in private gardens are invariably unsuccessful.
In fact persicifolia means having slender leaves, like those of the peach tree. The broad bell-like flowers, up to 4 cm across, are borne in loose one-sided racemes from June until August. Bats-in-the-Belfry (C trachelium) is also a robust perennial herb with triangular-ovate leaves resembling those of nettle. The flowers are arranged in thick racemes and are borne, one to three to a stalk, from July until September. The tips of the sepals and petals are covered with bristles. The fruit of both bellflowers is a capsule that bursts on ripening to release the seeds.
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