Bluebell Meaning: Constancy in 1884, Humility in Modern Lists, Fairy Folklore and the Three Plants Called Bluebell

Bluebell meaning, in the Victorian language of flowers, is constancy: Kate Greenaway’s 1884 dictionary lists “Bluebell” beside “Constancy.” The bluebell in question is the English bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, a spring woodland bulb of Britain. Modern guides add more. The Woodland Trust gives humility, constancy, gratitude and everlasting love, and an Iowa State University list gives humility. British folklore ties the plant to fairies, and under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is an offence to sell wild bluebells in Britain. Two other plants share the name, so this guide also sorts out which one a given meaning belongs to. For the wider system behind all of it, see our flower symbolism guide.

Every meaning below is tradition, not botany. Where a dated book says it, we name the book. Where only a modern list says it, we say that instead.

What does the bluebell mean in the language of flowers?

The bluebell means constancy in Greenaway’s dictionary, and in Flora’s Pocket Dictionary (Philadelphia, 1870), which gives “Constancy. Sorrowful regret.” Robert Tyas’s 1869 book gives a different word. Its entry reads “The Blue Bell (Scilla nonscripta) — Kindness,” and it describes “this pretty flower, commonly called the Wild Hyacinth,” as one that “abounds in the spring months in our shady woods.” Tyas gives constancy to another blue flower, the pyramidal bell flower (Campanula pyramidalis), whose “lovely blue” he calls “the colour of the eye of a young lady whose characteristic is constancy.”

Get a free pre-planned flower bed (vase-worthy from June to frost)

Printable planting plans for a cut-flower bed and a cottage pollinator bed — plant list, spacing, and calendar included.

Send me the plans

I agree to receive emails from Blooming Expert and accept the Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe anytime.

Tyas also records where he found the flower at its best: “Nowhere have we seen it so profusely blooming, as in the hazel copses around Godalming.” He quotes Keats’s poem “Fancy,” which calls the plant the “Shaded Hyacinth, alway sapphire Queen of the Mid-May.”

Two of the three dated books agree on constancy for the bluebell, and the third says kindness. The table sets every tradition side by side, with what each one rests on.

Only the first three rows rest on a printed Victorian book that gives an entry for the bluebell itself. The rest are modern lists, conservation-organisation retellings or a collection of Scottish belief about a different plant.

Where do humility and gratitude come from?

Humility and gratitude are not in the Victorian dictionary entries for the bluebell. The Woodland Trust says that “in the language of flowers, the bluebell is a symbol of humility, constancy, gratitude and everlasting love.” The Essex Wildlife Trust says the bluebell symbolises humility, constancy and gratitude. The Iowa State list gives “Bluebell—Humility,” while noting that “there are multiple sources with this information.” None of the three names a book.

The Victorian books give those words to other plants. Greenaway lists humility under the small bindweed, broom and field lilac. Flora’s Pocket Dictionary lists it under small bindweed, broom and field lilac, and Tyas calls the small bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) a “fitting emblem of Humility.” Gratitude is Greenaway’s “Bell Flower (small white)” and Flora’s “Bell Flower, White,” while Tyas gives gratitude to agrimony. The RHS school resource keeps the two apart: “Bluebell: consistency, forgive and forget” on one line, “Campanula: white – gratitude” on another.

No source we read says how the modern bluebell list formed. The documented fact is narrower. In the dictionaries above, constancy and kindness are the bluebell’s words, and humility and gratitude belong to other plants.

Which plants are called bluebell?

Three different plants answer to “bluebell,” depending on where you are. In England the name means Hyacinthoides non-scripta. In Scotland, the Dictionary of the Scots Language defines “Blue-bell” as “the name applied in Sc. and n.Eng. to the light blue flower Campanula rotundifolia, known in Eng. gen. as the harebell,” and cites Burns in 1795. In the central and eastern United States the native plant called bluebells is Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, and the NC State Plant Toolbox lists “Bluebells” among its common names.

Within Britain the native bluebell has two look-alikes as well. The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) says the native bluebell “is now joined by a garden escape known as Hyacinthoides hispanica and, more commonly, the hybrid between the two.” It adds that only H. non-scripta is native in the British Isles, and that the Spanish bluebell’s native range is the western part of the Iberian peninsula. The Spanish bluebell is a look-alike of the English one rather than a separate meaning, so the table compares the flowers and leaves of the English bluebell, its Spanish look-alike and the Virginia bluebell, the three a gardener is most likely to meet.

The stem and the pollen separate the two European bluebells fastest. The National Trust says creamy-white pollen means a bluebell is probably native or a hybrid, and green or blue pollen means it is not native. Pollen alone therefore does not separate a native from a hybrid, and hybrids take characteristics from both parents, which is why a single feature can mislead. English bluebells flower from mid-April to late May, according to the Woodland Trust. NC State says the leaves of Virginia bluebells emerge deep purple, turn green and go dormant in mid-summer, and the New York Botanical Garden says the plant is a spring ephemeral.

What does the harebell, the Scottish bluebell, mean?

The harebell means submission and grief in Greenaway’s dictionary, which lists “Harebell: Submission. Grief.” Flora’s Pocket Dictionary gives “Grief. Retirement.” These are the Victorian words for Campanula rotundifolia, the plant the Scots dictionary calls the bluebell, and both books file it under Harebell, not Bluebell. The Scottish plant had a darker folk reputation as well. Thiselton-Dyer says that in some localities the harebell is called the “witches’ thimble,” and the Woodland Trust lists “witches’ thimbles” among the English bluebell’s common names, so the name appears for both plants.

Why do Hyacinthoides and Mertensia both get the name?

Hyacinthoides and Mertensia are unrelated genera that share an English name. The English bluebell is in the asparagus family, and Virginia bluebells are in the borage family, which includes forget-me-not and lungwort. Virginia bluebells open from pink buds, and the New York Botanical Garden says this pink-to-blue change, which is not uncommon in the borage family, is due to changes in the pH of the cell sap.

The Latin names carry two separate histories. The BSBI says the English bluebell “has a chequered history,” having been Endymion non-scriptus to British botanists until recently and Scilla non-scripta before that. Tyas’s 1869 entry uses Scilla nonscripta. A UK wildflower site, UK Wildflowers, says the epithet non-scripta means “not written.” It ties the name to the Greek myth of Hyakinthos, whose flower was marked with the letters AI, AI (“alas”), and says Linnaeus gave the English bluebell the name Hyacinthus non-scriptus because it carries no such letters. Our hyacinth meaning guide tells that myth in full.

Virginia bluebells reached botany by a different route. The New York Botanical Garden says Peter Kalm first collected the plant in Virginia and Linnaeus described it as a species of the European genus Pulmonaria. “More than 40 years later,” the garden says, the German botanist Albrecht Roth gave it a genus of its own, Mertensia, after the German botanist F. C. Mertens. NC State says the genus name honors Franz Carl Mertens, a professor of botany at Bremen, and that the species name virginica means “from Virginia.”

The English name reaches British catalogues too. The RHS plant profile for Mertensia virginica, titled “Virginian bluebells,” lists “bluebells” among its other common names. When a source says “bluebell” without a Latin name, the meaning attached to it may belong to any of the plants above. Latin names remove the ambiguity.

What does fairy folklore say about bluebells?

Folklore says a ringing bluebell summons fairies. The Wiltshire Wildlife Trust says the flowers “are also said to be fairy bells, which ring to summon fairies and pixies to their secret gatherings,” and that humans cannot hear the bells: “if they do, it means they have crossed into the fairy world.” It adds that the blossoms appear around the Gaelic festival of Beltane, when the veil between our world and the fairy realm is said to be thin.

The darker versions are on the Woodland Trust and Essex Wildlife Trust pages. If you hear a bluebell ring, a bad fairy visits you and you “will die not long after,” the Woodland Trust says. If a child picks a bluebell, the Essex Wildlife Trust says, some believe fairies will lead the child astray. The National Trust adds that anyone who wanders into a ring of bluebells will fall under fairy enchantment and that bluebells were believed to be used in witches’ potions. Lighter beliefs sit beside these. Turn a bluebell flower inside out without tearing it and you will win the one you love, and wear a wreath of bluebells and you can only tell the truth. The Wiltshire Wildlife Trust also records a belief that bringing bluebells into the house is bad luck, and the playground chant “Dusty Bluebells.”

These accounts are presented as tradition, and none of the four pages cites an older text for them. The one passage in Thiselton-Dyer’s The Folk-lore of Plants (1889) that uses the word bluebell is about the harebell. It says the “bluebell (Campanula rotundifolia), which in certain parts of Scotland was called ‘The aul’ man’s bell,’ and was regarded with a sort of dread, and commonly left unpulled.” The dread in that 1889 record belongs to the Scottish bluebell, not the English woodland plant.

Is it illegal to sell or pick bluebells in Britain?

In Britain it is an offence to sell wild bluebells; whether picking is also an offence is described differently by different sources, as set out below. Section 13(2) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it an offence to sell, offer or expose for sale, or to possess or transport for the purpose of sale, “any live or dead wild plant included in Schedule 8, or any part of, or anything derived from, such a plant,” and to publish an advertisement conveying that you buy or sell such things. Schedule 8 lists “Bluebell (in respect of section 13(2) only)” with Hyacinthoides non-scripta, and legislation.gov.uk records the entry as added on 16 April 1998 by S.I. 1998/878. In proceedings under section 13(2)(a), section 13(4) presumes the plant in question to be a wild plant “unless the contrary is shown,” and section 21 sets the penalties.

The listing targets the bulb trade. The Woodland Trust says the bluebell is still common throughout Britain but is under local threat from habitat destruction, hybridisation with non-native bluebells and the illegal trade of wild-collected bulbs, and that the legislation was designed to protect it from unscrupulous bulb collectors who supply garden centres. The National Trust says almost half the world’s bluebells are found in the UK. The BSBI is more cautious about the Spanish bluebell: it finds “not much evidence of an overall decline” in the native plant, and says the ability of the Spanish bluebell and the hybrid to outcompete it “is often quoted but has yet to be demonstrated empirically.”

Sources describe the other protections in different words. The BSBI writes that “it is illegal to dig up any plant in the wild without the permission of the landowner.” The Woodland Trust says digging up the plant or bulb in the countryside is prohibited, and that the 1998 listing made trading in wild bluebell bulbs and seeds an offence. The National Trust says it is “against the law to intentionally pick, uproot or destroy bluebells,” and the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust says it is illegal to pick wild bluebells.

The Act’s text reads differently from the last two summaries. The picking offence in section 13(1)(a) applies to Schedule 8 plants, and the bluebell entry is limited to section 13(2), the sale offence. Section 13(1)(b) separately makes it an offence for anyone who is not an “authorised person” to intentionally uproot a wild plant not included in the Schedule. Section 27 defines an authorised person to include the owner or occupier of the land, or anyone they authorise. How these provisions fit together for a plant listed “in respect of section 13(2) only” is a question for a lawyer, and this page is not legal advice. The BSBI adds that “some conservation bodies have allowed the trade in native bluebells to resume under licence.” The advice common to these sources is simple: do not buy or sell wild-collected bulbs, and leave wild plants where they grow.

The National Trust and the Woodland Trust give a second reason beyond the law. Crushed leaves cannot photosynthesise, so trampled bluebells die back from lack of food and take years to recover. Schedule 8 names only Hyacinthoides non-scripta, so the Spanish bluebell and the hybrid are not listed in it.

Growing the bluebell you mean

If you want the plant instead of the symbol, pick the species first. English bluebells suit the damp, leaf-mulched soil that the Essex Wildlife Trust describes, in woodland, and any bulbs you buy should come from a supplier who says they are cultivated, not wild-collected, and named as H. non-scripta. Virginia bluebells suit moist, rich shade in the US, and NC State says to plant them with other shade-loving perennials that will emerge as the Virginia bluebells go dormant in mid-summer. The New York Botanical Garden notes that “we have few truly blue flowers,” and our guide to true blue flowers lists 35 of them. For identification, hybrids, planting depth and which bluebell is native where, our guide to English, Spanish and Virginia bluebells goes through each of them.

Frequently asked questions

What does a bluebell flower symbolize?

Constancy in Kate Greenaway’s 1884 dictionary and in Flora’s Pocket Dictionary (1870), and kindness in Robert Tyas’s 1869 book. Modern lists add humility, gratitude and everlasting love without naming a book.

Does a bluebell mean humility?

The Woodland Trust, the Essex Wildlife Trust and an Iowa State University list say so. Greenaway, Tyas and Flora’s Pocket Dictionary give humility to the small bindweed, and Greenaway and Flora’s also to broom.

What is the difference between English, Spanish and Virginia bluebells?

English bluebells nod to one side of a stem and have narrow leaves. Spanish bluebells stand upright with bells all round and bigger leaves. Virginia bluebells are a different genus, Mertensia, with trumpet-shaped flowers and oval leaves.

What is the Scottish bluebell?

It is Campanula rotundifolia, known in England as the harebell. The Dictionary of the Scots Language gives bluebell as its name in Scots and northern English.

Why are bluebells linked to fairies?

Conservation-organisation pages say a ringing bluebell summons fairies and that bluebell woods are enchanted. None gives an older source, so the tradition’s origin is undocumented here.

Is it illegal to pick bluebells in Britain?

Selling wild bluebells or their bulbs is an offence in Britain under section 13(2) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Trusts also say picking or uprooting is unlawful, though the Schedule lists the bluebell for the sale offence only.

Which bluebell is native to the US?

Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica, are native to eastern Canada and the central and eastern United States, according to NC State Extension.

Sources

1. Greenaway, Kate. The Language of Flowers, 1884. Project Gutenberg #31591 (linked in text)
2. Tyas, Robert. The Language of Flowers, 1869 edition. Internet Archive (linked in text)
3. Flora’s Pocket Dictionary: a lexicon of the language and sentiment of flowers. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1870. Internet Archive (linked in text)
4. Woodland Trust. Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) (linked in text)
5. Iowa State University Extension, Yard and Garden. Flowers and Their Meanings: The Language of Flowers (linked in text)
6. Royal Horticultural Society. The meaning of flowers, school gardening resource (linked in text)
7. Essex Wildlife Trust. Wild Folklore: English bluebell (linked in text)
8. Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. Magic in the Woods Today: Bluebells, the Flower of the Fairy Realm (linked in text)
9. National Trust. A guide to bluebells in the UK (linked in text)
10. Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 13. legislation.gov.uk (linked in text)
11. Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Schedule 8. legislation.gov.uk (linked in text)
12. Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 21. legislation.gov.uk (linked in text)
13. Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 27. legislation.gov.uk (linked in text)
14. Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Species account: Hyacinthoides non-scripta, H. hispanica and H. x massartiana (linked in text)
15. Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. The Folk-lore of Plants, 1889. Project Gutenberg #10118 (linked in text)
16. Dictionary of the Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary. Blue-bell (linked in text)
17. NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox. Mertensia virginica (linked in text)
18. New York Botanical Garden, Plant Talk. Virginia Bluebells: A Chameleon-Like Plant, 15 May 2013 (linked in text)
19. Royal Horticultural Society. Mertensia virginica (Virginian bluebells) (linked in text)
20. UK Wildflowers. The naming of Hyacinthoides non-scripta (linked in text)