Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:
[...]
I am under the impression that the white and pink variants occur in
parallel in both Common and Spanish Bluebells. There are a number of
other characters that distinguish the two species -

URL:http://www.google.com/search?num=100...Spanish+bluebe
ll
will find you text on that subject, but that will not necessarily
apply to all hybrids - if you've got some introgression into a
population of Common Bluebells all you can do is rogue obvious
hybrids as they occur.

I expect that pink and white variants occur more frequently in
populations grown from cultivated stock, rather than from wild stock,
as variants have been selected for horticultural use in the past.

There's an interesting and attractive variant naturalised at the Gelli
Aur country park near Carmarthen. This is white, with a narrow streak of
deep pink down the middle of each "petal". As far as I remember, last
time I was there the large colony still hadn't been visibly
cross-pollinated with ordinary blue ones. I imagine the group must have
been planted in Victorian times when the arboretum was set up, so this
represents a remarkable survival. I mentioned it to a senior member of
staff, hoping that they might take steps to have the population bulked
up for sale or preservation, but I don't think they did anything about
it.

--
Mike.



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