Flowers. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Scottsdale Bush Heritage Reserve near Bredbo, NSW

Plants. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Scottsdale Bush Heritage Reserve near Bredbo, NSW

Plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: AN Schmidt-Lebuhn, Koorawatha Nature Reserve, NSW

Flowers. Photo: Don Wood, south coast, NSW

Common Name

Australian Bluebell, Sprawling Bluebell

Family

Campanulaceae

Notes

Perennial forb to 80cm tall.  Leaves alternating up the stems, sometimes the lowermost opposite each other on the stem.  Leaves 0.2-6cm long, 0.2-10mm wide, flat becoming linear up the stem, hairless, lower leaves sometimes sparsely hairy, the edges entire or sometimes with small teeth, and sometimes wavy.  Flowers blue, sometimes pink or white, tubular, with 5 lobes (sometimes 3 or 4), in open groups at the tops of the stems. 

Differs from Wahlenbergia communis , Wahlenbergia graniticola , Wahlenbergia luteola,and Wahlenbergia queenslandica in that the free flower lobes are 1.5-6mm in length, from Wahlenbergia fluminalis and Wahlenbergia littoricola in that the free lobes of the flower are less than twice as long as the tube, from Wahlenbergia gracilenta in that the leaves all alternate up the stems, and from Wahlenbergia tumidifructa in that the fruiting bodies are top-shaped.

Description in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 628

PlantNET description:   http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Wahlenbergia~gracilis

Line drawings of flowers and fruiting bodies of seven species of Wahlenbergia in this key (but not Wahlenbergia graniticola, Wahlenbergia luteola, or Wahlenbergia stricta ssp. alterna) in Flora of South Australia 4th edition, Handbooks Committee on behalf of the South Australian Government (1986), Volume 3, page 1382