English v Spanish Bluebells-interesting article.

madpenguin

Interesting article about the English and Spanish Bluebells:-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48137471

Singing Gardener

Yes, I read that - very interesting. It seems hard to believe based on experience with Spanish bluebells but perhaps they spread mostly by bulb division rather than seed.

edhelka

Interesting, thank you for sharing it here.

I have Spanish bluebells which have flowers on two sides of the stem, normal (not broad) leaves and are very strongly scented, are they hybrids? And if Spanish bluebells are less fertile, why so many people seem to have some kind of hybrids?

They are everywhere around here.

josusa47

I think it is not so much a question of fertility, as that Spanish bluebells are less picky as to habitat.  H. non-scripta is a woodland plant and doesn't readily establish anywhere else, while H. hispanica is happy to grow out in the open.  Like so many endangered species, we destroy their habitat and then wonder why we see so few of them. 

I was surprised last spring to see a sunny, grassy hillside covered with bluebells and assumed they must be Spanish, but when I got up close, they were the genuine article.  I read up it, and it turns out that, if native bluebells are established in woodland, they can persist for a long time after the trees are cleared.