| Author | (Pursh) Morin | |
| Distribution | Found throughout the Mountains, apparently not quite extending into the Piedmont.
This is a Northern species, ranging across Canada and south to NJ, PA, and IA, southward mainly in the Appalachians, to northern GA.
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| Abundance | Though present in nearly all of the Mountain counties, this is a rare species, and limited in acreage to small wetlands such as bogs. It is now listed as a State Threatened species, though the NC Plant Conservation Program lists just the variety -- P. aparinoides var. aparinoides -- as Threatened. | |
| Habitat | This is a wetland species, found mostly in bogs, but also can be found in wet meadows, in open seepages (usually over mafic rocks), and a few other small or isolated wetlands. |
| Phenology | Blooms from late June through August, and fruits within this same flowering period. | |
| Identification | This is a very slender and weak species, usually leaning, reaching about 1 foot tall, with a few branches. The stem has stiff, backward-pointing hairs. The scattered alternate leaves are narrow, mostly linear, about 1.5 inches long but barely 1/8-inch wide, somewhat serrate. The flowers are in a very wide and loose panicle, a few here and there, white to rarely pale blue, bell-shaped with 5 flaring petals, and about 1/2-inch long. Though not large, the flowers almost look too big for the slender stalks and branches beneath them. When walking through a bog or wet meadow, you likely will not even notice the species unless the white flowers are present to catch your eye, as the stem and leaves are so slender. This is the only one of the four NC "Campanula" species with white flowers, the others almost always being blue. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | Weakley (2018) lists the nominate variety as the only one present in NC. Long known as Campanula aparinoides, but recent molecular work has highlighted its generic differences.
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| Other Common Name(s) | Bedstraw Bellflower | |
| State Rank | S2 | |
| Global Rank | G5 | |
| State Status | [T] | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | | |
| USACE-emp | | |
