The Pale Bell Of The Heath

There is a little flower of exquisite delicacy, which springs up among the heath and rough grass, in uncultivated spots.

Its form is that of a single bell closely resembling the Canterbury bell of our gardens, and its texture transparently fine.

The stem, perhaps, rises two inches from the ground, and there in the attitude of a snow-drop, depends this soft, little cup, dissimilar in many respects from the well-known blue-bell of the heaths, and wearing the grey tint of its kindred autumnal sky, rather than the sprightly azure of summer.

The aspect of this wild flower is so infantile, so fragile, so ethereal, that we wonder to recognize it among the hardy heather and the rugged grasses where it usually dwells.

We see it in our path one day; the next it is gone, leaving no perceptible vacancy among its thickly spread neighbors, except to the eye of those who marked its lovely form unfolding to the bleak winds, and anticipated how short a sojourn such a thing of gossamer would make on such a clime.

— ‘Chapters on Flowers’ pg. 185 (Charlotte Elizabeth)