Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Underappreciated gems: a wayward Campanula (or Trachelium rumelianum)


Trachelium (Campanula) rumelianum

Everyone has a plant that loves them--perhaps even a bit too much! Almost 20 years ago we planted a few seedlings of this campanulad on the back slope of the Alpine (now Succulent) House at Denver Botanic Gardens. Over the next few years, it made itself at home...maybe too much so!

Trachelium (Campanula) rumelianum run amok!

 The slope is a showcase for bulbs in the spring: especially Corydalis in many species. There was a time when it was the 

Here is the same spot a few months earlier!
Lewisia cotyledon run amok!

Believe it or not, this is the very same garden a few weeks (and years!) before the Trachelium took over: the evolution of gardens is more than a little interesting for some of us! I am continuously amazed how a plant can thrive and even spread fantastically for a while, and eventually be supplanted. And then you might even have a devil of a time re-establishing it where it was almost a weed! It's happened to me in my long gardening life many times! Therein almost lies a book.

Closeup with honeybee
The flower almost reminds me more of a globe thistle or a Globularia than a campanula--but DNA and botanists have now lumped this in the giant genus with which you can sometimes find it growing in nature. Honeybees like it in any case...

A pale form growing in my home garden

As luck would have it, I've grown several plants, and they all have had much paler flowers than most we've grown at DBG. 
Trachelium (Campanula) rumelianum on Mt. Olympus

And finally here it is in nature. We found just a few plants on one cliff at relatively low elevations on Mt. Olympus and I took a perfunctory (and somewhat out of focus picture): I knew it was supposed to grow here and supposed it would be common. We never saw it again the next few days when we circumambulated and climbed the mountains for miles and miles. I know it grows elsewhere in the Balkans, but was glad to find it even once...

This post was inspired when I searched for images of Trachelium on Prairiebreak and I found only one, but a lovely one. I thought it deserved a re-visit!

1 comment:

  1. I am jealous of how you have grown Lewisias. I killed a few before I realized they hate lime. I've purchased some sandstone flagstone to use for a small Lewisia crevice garden. However, I have not gotten the crevice garden made yet. If I don't get it done soon the ground will be frozen. I will have to wait until next spring.

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