ONH

Piper’s Bellflower

Campanula piperi

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    1 - Piper’s bellflower, Campanula piperi.

    08/19/2011 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

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    2 - Piper’s bellflower growing in typical crevices in rock face.

    07/11/2009 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

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    3 - Piper’s bellflower.

    07/28/2014 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

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    4 - Piper’s bellflower.

    07/22/2009 Klahhane Switchback Trail, Olympic National Park, Washington

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    5 - Piper’s bellflower.

    07/24/2011 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

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    6 - Piper’s bellflower.

    07/18/2010 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

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    7 - Piper’s bellflower, buds of the uncommon white form.

    07/19/2013 Obstruction Point Road, Olympic National Park, Washington

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    8 - Piper’s bellflower, uncommon white form in full bloom.

    07/26/2013 Obstruction Point Road, Olympic National Park, Washington

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    9 - Piper’s bellflower, uncommon white form in full bloom.

    07/26/2018 Obstruction Point Road, Olympic National Park, Washington This is the same rock face as shown in slide 8, five years later.

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    10 - Piper’s bellflower.

    07/28/2014 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

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    11 - Piper’s bellflower.

    07/28/2014 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

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    12 - Piper’s bellflower growing on the edge of a scree slope.

    07/24/2017 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

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    13 - Piper’s bellflower growing on a scree slope.

    07/24/2017 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

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    14 - Piper’s bellflower, with an endemic Olympic grasshopper nymph, Nisquallia olympica.

    07/11/2009 Blue Mountain/Deer Park, Olympic National Park

Piper’s bellflower, Campanula piperi, grows in small clumps in crevices of rock faces in the high Olympics. The plant is not common, but can be found on the same rock faces year after year (slides 8 and 9).

The five-petaled blue flowers stand out against the dark rock faces where the plant typically grows. Some individual plants have flowers of a lighter blue color and some uncommon individual plants have white flowers (these lack the blue pigment). We have also seen Piper’s bellflower growing on rocky scree slopes, attached to rock under the scree (slides 12 and 13).

While Olympic National Park list the plant as an endemic (occurring nowhere but the Olympic Peninsula), The Burke Museum of the University of Washington lists it as growing on Vancouver Island, Canada as well.

The species was named for Charles Vancouver Piper, an early northwest botanist.