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I've always liked them and there are big patches of them all over the woodland where we live. They have been three weeks earlier than usual, and have just about peaked now, but they are unusually thick and profuse this year. If I knew how I would post a tinyurl link, but it isn't worth bothering anyone else to do it. Bit soppy really since most people here are blokes. Herself likes them even more than I do and has made me email some pix to the daughter in Oz.
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It's a poor year if we don't make time to do our "bluebell walk".
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I've always liked woodland, and woodland with bluebells or snowdrops is extra nice.
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Catch them while you can!
The bluebell is under threat of being squeezed out by a hardy hybrid - a cross between the native bluebell and a Spanish cousin introduced to British gardens more than 300 years ago.
There are very good woods of them on the Hambledon Peninsula in Rutland Water this year.
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Does anyone know what causes white bluebells?
I had imagined that they were simply a rare variant, and that each year a particular bulb would come up true to its previous year's colour. But I notice big swings each year as between the proprtions of blue and white.
Last year our bluebells had about 5% of white, but this year there is one single clump.
The same is true of local patches along the lanes and in the woods.
Is whiteness an annual variation, determined by environmental factors? If not, why the changes from year to year?
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This has been the best, and longest bluebell season for years. Driving over the North downs back roads a few weeks back the bluebells were shimmering a foot off the ground like a thick blue fog in the woods of Surrey and Sussex.
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I was thinking that about my lillac blossom.
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Yes has been a good year for lilacs. Have several as on very alkaline soil and can't grow azaleas etc.
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Long and learned discussion on the subject here
tinyurl.com/5ul2zht
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That's interesting. Observation seems to confirm my own that blues/whites are or can be the same plant, and simply turn into each other. We certainly get a fair few pale blue, or more rarely, faint pink, quite erratically, and in varying proportions each year.
A few years ago I gathered handfulls of seeds and scattered them in our new wood. They are spreading nicely, but so far are all normal blues, not white. Perhaps the white only emerges in strong sunlight?
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I think many plants have colour variations, perhaps different sub species? I was on the Thames last week and noticed that almost all the horse chestnut trees had very pale pink flowers whereas away from the water I see pure white or deep red. I have noticed that a lot of wisteria looks quite pale or almost white but it also looks as though it may have faded to that colour in the sun.
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The white are simply a different naturally occurring variety, not a seperate species. ( Hyainthoides non-scripta 'Alba')
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Isn't whitery a recessive gene and blueaciousness a dominant one, simple as that?
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I've noticed far more this year as well, including unusual colour variations. The flip side around here are the migrant workers that come here to harvest them (yes we know it's 90% illegal) to sell the bulbs onto garden centres down sarff...
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>> Isn't whitery a recessive gene and blueaciousness a dominant one, simple as that?
As with most flower colour variations, yes.
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>> >> Isn't whitery a recessive gene and blueaciousness a dominant one, simple as that?
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>> As with most flower colour variations, yes.
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Yes, but my observation is that if I watch a particular plant, one year it comes up white and another year blue. How come? Aren't the genes fixed in the bulbs, or do they change each year?
And why does whatever factor is causing the change in one plant cause a general change in proportions of B/W over a whole area miles wide?
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SWMBO and I had a trip to Wakehurst on Sunday and the woodland was full of bluebells.
As you would expect at 'Kew in the country' the gardens were absolutely stunning , the azaleas and rhododendrons provided great splashes of colour but particularly impressive were the flaming colours of the Chilean Fire Bush....
tinyurl.com/5vwlncu
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All a but technical for me, especially if you read the Wikipedia article about recessive genes, but here is a link to a thread in another forum where white/blue bluebells and the effects of genes on them are discussed, which might shed some light. I think it makes sense...
www.gardenbanter.co.uk/united-kingdom/61272-bluebells-turned-pink-sick-apple.html
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Bluebells: fairly pointless post - Manatee
