Bellflower, Ivy-leaved

Information on Ivy-leaved Bellflower

Common Name: Ivy-leaved Bellflower
Scientific Name: Wahlenbergia hederacea
Irish Name: Milleanna móna
Family Group: Campanulaceae
Distribution: View Map (Courtesy of the BSBI)
Flowering Period


Click for list of all flowering by month
Ivy-leaved Bellflower is not easily confused with other wild plants on this web site.


Extremely slender, creeping and delicate, this is a hairless, perennial species belonging to the Bellflower or Campanulaceae family. It can be so easily missed or overlooked as it is very small, forming small patches beside streams and on grassy, boggy or wet tracks. Trailing on weak, straggling stems, it bears pale blue, small, bell-shaped flowers (6-10mm long) which have five short, flared, triangular lobes. These little nodding flowers are borne solitarily – occasionally paired - on slender stems which arise from leave axils. The pale green leaves are all long-stalked and alternate, rounded to kidney shaped, somewhat ivy-shaped. Ivy-leaved Bellflower flowers in July and August and is only found in the south-west, Co Mayo with some records from Waterford.It belongs to the Campanula family. 

I first saw this species in July 2014 in Ballycroy National Park, Co Mayo when I was lucky enough to be shown it by Bríd Colhoun of Ballycroy National Park Visitor Centre. I am extremely grateful to Bríd for this and many other species which she showed to me. 

If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre

This species is classed as NEAR THREATENED in the Red Data List of Vascular Plants 2016.

This is an extremely tiny flower and I have purposely shown it beside both the tip of my trek-pole and Bog Pimpernel, which many will know, in order to show its relative size. 

Bellflower, Ivy-leaved
Bellflower, Ivy-leaved
Bellflower, Ivy-leaved
Bellflower, Ivy-leaved