Adenophora stricta seed

LATIN NAME: Adenophora stricta

COMMON NAME: Ladybell

The ladybell is a handsome, upright, slender, perennial herb of the meadows, and its fine, oval, toothed leaves and its tall, upright, loose heads of the many small, nodding, blue or blue-violet, bell-shaped flowers have made it a treasured and fine plant of the meadow garden. It grows as an upright, slender, perennial herb, reaching up to one metre or so, with the upright, slender, branching stems bearing the alternate, oval, pointed, toothed leaves and, through the summer, the tall, upright, loose heads of the many small, nodding, blue or blue-violet, bell-shaped flowers, followed by the small, dry, many-seeded capsules. It is a species of the flowering plant in the bellflower family, and it is native to the meadows of the eastern Asia, while it grows in the open, sunny places, and it is known as the ladybell.

In the bellflower family it is the slender, blue-flowered member of the eastern meadows, a cousin of the campanulas that nods its bells in the summer wind.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The ladybell roots appear across the papers of the traditional plant chemistry of the eastern Asia, where the fleshy roots have a long record of use, and the work on the root constituents has continued without pause. The meadow botanists have mapped its place in the bellflower family and the open, sunny flora of the region, and the horticulturists have grown the nodding, blue, bell-shaped form for the meadow garden. The plant is best kept as a subject of study rather than a casual home remedy, and the growers of the wildflower border keep it in their catalogues for the tall, blue towers of the summer meadow.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the meadow garden, the ladybell is the tall, blue note of the summer. Its nodding, bell-shaped flowers feed the bees and the insects for weeks, and the slender, upright stems give the border a graceful, natural presence that the wildflower patch loves. The roots carry the long record of traditional use in the region, and the plant itself asks only for the open, sunny ground and the moist, well-drained soil. Blue, nodding and meadow-natural.

Rake the surface of a pot of moist, free-draining soil smooth, scatter the seeds thinly over it and cover them with only a light dusting of fine compost, water gently and keep the pot in a bright but not scorching spot, and the seedlings will come up freely, each one a future stem of nodding blue bells.