Species
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Campanula medium L.

Canterbury Bells (EN), Canterbury bellflower, Canterbury bells, Canterbury bells

Climate known 87 photographs
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Campanula medium, common name Canterbury bells, is an annual or biennial flowering plant of the genus Campanula, belonging to the family Campanulaceae. In floriography, it represents gratitude, or faith and constancy. It is the national flower of Monaco

Text from Wikipedia, “Campanula medium”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Campanula

Campanula is the type genus of the Campanulaceae family of flowering plants. Campanula are commonly known as bellflowers and take both their common and scientific names from the bell-shaped flowers—campanula is Latin for "little bell".

Text from Wikipedia, “Campanula”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Campanulaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
France, Italy
Wild records
1012 in range· 759 open

At a glance

Warmest month
25°C
Jul, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1041mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 132 mm (CHELSA)
Light
9–43DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a winter growing season, September to January and April to May in the northern hemisphere (September to January and April to May at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1041 mm a year, wettest October at 132 mm, driest July at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 43 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -6.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Campanula bourdiniana Gand.; Campanula florida Salisb.; Campanula grandiflora Lam.; Campanula medium f. alba Voss; Campanula medium f. caerulea Voss and 25 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a winter growing season, September to January and April to May in the northern hemisphere (September to January and April to May at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (733 mm of 1041 mm) falls in September to January and April to May, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 9.6 °C against a yearly mean of 11.5 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: March to July and October to November.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1041 mm a year, wettest October at 132 mm, driest July at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1041 mm a year at the habitat, 733 mm of it September to January and April to May. Wettest month October at 132 mm, driest July at 50 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 782 mm to 1367 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 43 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 43 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 6, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -6.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -6.8 °C, the absolute minimum -16.1 °C, about 74 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells -5.9 °C to 3.6 °C), warmest day 24.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -6.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 62% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 6 °C in Jan to 25 °C in Jul; mean night from -1 °C in Jan to 15 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1041 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 735 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -16.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.2 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost35.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)-16.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 9–43RH 57–62 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 735 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C6 / 3–98 / 4–1011 / 7–1314 / 10–1618 / 15–2122 / 18–2525 / 21–2825 / 21–2821 / 17–2316 / 13–1810 / 7–137 / 4–10
Night °C-1 / -6–4-0 / -5–42 / -2–65 / 0–89 / 5–1212 / 8–1615 / 11–1915 / 11–1912 / 8–168 / 4–123 / -1–80 / -5–5
Rain mm79 / 57–10859 / 44–8565 / 49–9596 / 63–12593 / 65–12969 / 47–10250 / 27–8565 / 43–97111 / 75–142132 / 91–178120 / 81–160102 / 71–135
DLI11 / 8–1317 / 13–1926 / 21–2832 / 29–3438 / 34–4042 / 37–4443 / 37–4537 / 32–3928 / 24–3018 / 15–2012 / 9–149 / 6–11
RH %61 / 57–6660 / 57–6459 / 56–6259 / 57–6159 / 56–6258 / 54–6157 / 52–6058 / 54–6160 / 57–6262 / 60–6562 / 60–6662 / 58–67

Each figure is the median across the 735 grid cells holding the 1005 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 909:3701 (44.525, 5.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -16.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -6.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.2 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 735 distinct grid cells holding the 1005 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 909:3701 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 44.50_5.000, lapse-corrected +50 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 516 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeFrance, Italy· introduced: Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Krym, South European Russia, Ukraine, New Zealand North, New Zealand South, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Montana, Oregon, Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast
Kew's description“biennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker44.547, 5.542 · in the densest population, 569 records (56% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1012 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 759 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 251 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 7 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1012 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Campanula mediumCampanula mediumCampanula mediumCampanula mediumCampanula mediumCampanula mediumCampanula mediumCampanula medium

Photographs: (c) Luca Fornasari, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Franck Cabot, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) anasacuta, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Campanula medium, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Selective Accumulation of Delphinidin Derivatives in Tobacco Using a Putative Flavonoid 3′,5′-Hydroxylase cDNA fromCampanula medium
Yasushi Okinaka, Yukihisa Shimada, Ritsuko Nakano-Shimada, Masaya Ohbayashi (2003) · Bioscience Biotechnology and Biochemistry
Structures of campanin and rubrocampanin, two novel acylated anthocyanins with p-hydroxybenzoic acid from the flowers of bellflower, Campanula medium L.
Norihiko Terahara, Kenjiro Toki, Norio Saitô, Toshio Honda (1990) · Journal of the Chemical Society Perkin Transactions 1
The control of flowering
S. J. Wellensiek (1962) · Netherlands Journal of Agricultural Science
Polyacetylenes in Hairy Root Cultures of Campanula medium L.
Hiromi Tada, Toshiki Nakashima, Hisato Kunitake, Kinya Mori (1996) · Journal of Plant Physiology
Postharvest Handling of Cut Campanula medium Flowers
Theresa L. Bosma, John M. Dole (2002) · HortScience
Role of Ethylene in Senescence of Pollinated and Unpollinated Campanula medium Flowers.
Matsuzo Kato, Hiroko Shimizu, Tamotsu Hisamatsu, Takashi Onozaki (2002) · Journal of the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science
Flower formation in Campanula medium
S. J. Wellensiek (1960) · Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling
Dynamics of secondary pollen presentation in Campanula medium (Campanulaceae)
Marco D’Antraccoli, Francesco Roma‐Marzio, Giovanni Benelli, Angelo Canale (2019) · Journal of Plant Research

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Campanula 6 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 117 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.