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Wildflowers of the Stuttgart Area

Campanula rapunculus

Family : CAMPANULACEAE (Bellflower Family)
Common Name (UK) : Rampion
Common Name (DE) : Rapunzel-Glockenblume
Common Name (FR) : Campanule raiponce
Habitat : Prairies, brush, open forests, waysides
Remarks : "There is an Italian tradition that the possession of a rampion excites quarrels among children. The plant figures in one of Grimm's tales, the heroine, Rapunzel, being named after it, and the whole plot is woven around the theft of rampions from a magician's garden. In an old Calabrian tale, a maiden, uprooting a rampion in a field, discovers a staircase that leads to a palace far down in the depths of the earth.
...It is still much cultivated in France, Germany and Italy, and occasionally here, for the roots which are boiled tender like parsnips and eaten hot with a sauce. They are sweetish, with a slight pungency, but though wholesome, are considered inferior to other roots now more widely grown for culinary use. The larger roots are reserved for boiling, sometimes the young roots are eaten raw with vinegar and pepper, and occasionally the leaves, as well as the roots, are eaten as a winter salad. The leaves can be used in the summer and autumn as a substitute for spinach. The young shoots may be blanched like asparagus and prepared in the same manner." from Botanical.com
First appearing : May
Abundance :

  • Photo Date :May 31, 2008
  • Location :Mont Cesar, near Froidmont (Oise), France.
    N49° 23.175' E2° 14.390'
  • Photo Date : June 4, 2005
  • Location : Near Schelingen, Kaiserstuhl.
    N48° 06.027' E7° 41.202'
  • Photo Date : June 27, 2004
  • Location : Along a lane below the Old Castle in Baden-Baden.
  • Photo Date : June 27, 2004
  • Location : Along a lane below the Old Castle in Baden-Baden.
  • Photo Date : July 24, 2005
  • Location : The forest west of Botnang, Stuttgart.
    N48° 47.659' E9° 06.869'