"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
We have plenty of bluebells growing in the hedges around here (west
Cornwall), all with creamy white pollen. Perhaps they're all hybrids,
but my wild-flower book gives the colour of the anthers of the wild
English bluebell as creamy, and those of the Spaniard as blue. The RHS
encyclo. also gives these colours. As a one-time bee keeper, my pollen
book (pub.1951) gives shades of greenish-cream for English bluebell
and grey-blue-green for 'garden bluebell' (presumably E. hispanica).
Neither species produces purple pollen, apparently.

This isn't just a pedantic comment, but a serious enquiry. I too am
interested in 'real' English bluebells, and was considering collecting
seed from the local hedgerow flowers (is this legal?) until I read
your post, which made me think they might not be as thoroughbred as I
assumed, so I checked. It also occurs to me that you might be trying
to grow the wrong thing!


--
Chris

Chris and the group.
This is the best handy online reference I can find for Bluebells.
http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/cheshire/bbelbpnw.htm

I'm not sure I agree with their findings but this place is probably less
disturbed than most. So you have to take my observations as a snapshot of my
patch which might not be reflected elsewhere.
FWIW my observations here - 10Ha country house garden, large proportion
lightly or hardly gardened and I've seen the bluebells for 28 springs now.
We have 3 discrete populations of hybrids in areas where the place has been
most intensively gardened.
In a gardened path through the woodland we have a small patch of about 3
square metres of Spanish with perhaps the odd hybrid (been much the same for
28 years).
The lightly gardened areas have clearly never had bluebells planted and away
from the paths are almost certainly as near true english bluebells as you
will get in a garden.
In the Estate woodlands - ( a lot of it ancient semi natural) I don't have
detailed knowledge or continuous observation but looking casually they seem
to be english.
These populations have been pretty static over the 28 seasons; so at least
as far as this estate is concerned I don't see the english bluebell in any
real danger - don't forget those 'foreigners' have been here since
16something. The discrete populations here have stayed that way and should
continue that way unless somebody interferes with them.
IMHO the real danger (if it really matters that much anyway) is people
dumping unwanted bluebells in the countryside and of misguided
'conservationists' buying or obtaining bluebells of unknown provenance to
'restore' a bluebell wood. I'm guessing that that's how the spanish and
hybrid bluebells got out there in the first place.

Rod