Field Guide to Bluebells: free!

It's very nearly that time of year again - the bluebells are starting to sprout, and people keep asking me how to tell if they are looking at proper English Bluebells, or nasty inferior spanish infiltrators.

It's not a trivial question, as the imported spanish bluebells (note the deliberate insulting lack of capital letters) are interbreeding with our elegant originals, forming a population of hybrids which lack the scent.

This means that our grandchildren might never experience the scent of a Bluebell wood in May...

I'm not as concerned about the look of the flower: the spanish flower differs in shape and arrangement, and who is to say that it is not a more pleasing shape than the original?

But the loss of the scent - now, that would be a sad thing, so although I am not evangelical on the subject (unlike compost, about which I can talk until the cows come home) I do try to restrict the spread of spanish bluebells wherever possible.

So how to tell the difference?

Download my Field Guide to Bluebells this weekend - it is free at any time to anyone with Kindle Unlimited, or with Amazon Prime, and not terribly expensive to everyone else.. but this weekend, it is free to download to everyone, regardless of whether you have Kindle Unlimited or not.

In fact, regardless of whether you have a Kindle or not!  Amazon kindly provide a free method for downloading it to your own device, or to your pc for that matter.

So, no excuses, download it this weekend, then over the next few weeks you can check every Bluebell that you see while you are out and about.

I leave it up to you, as to what you do about them!!