Click the number at the start of a key lead to highlight both that lead and its corresponding lead. Click again to show only the two highlighted leads. Click a third time to return to the full key with the selected leads still highlighted.

Key to Campanulaceae

Copy permalink to share

1 Corollas bilaterally symmetrical (zygomorphic); carpels 2; [subfamily Lobelioideae]
1 Corollas radially symmetrical (actinomorphic); carpels (2-) 3-5; [subfamily Campanuloideae].
image of plant
Show caption*© Keith Bradley
  2 Corolla tube conspicuously lengthened (8-16 cm long), flowers white; leaves sharply toothed; [uncommon non-native, s. FL]
  2 Corolla tube not conspicuously lengthened (to 1 cm long); leaves sharply toothed to entire; [native and non-natives, collectively widespread]
    3 Capsule dehiscent apically; flowers solitary or in very diffuse panicles (Platycodon, Wahlenbergia), or in compact involucrate umbels (Jasione); [exotics, generally in weedy or disturbed situations].
      4 Flowers and fruits borne in an involucrate umbel
      4 Flowers and fruits solitary or in a diffuse inflorescence.
        5 Flowers large, 1 to few, solitary or nearly so; leaves large, ovate to elliptic; [Platycodonoid clade]
        5 Flowers small, several to many, borne in a diffuse inflorescence; leaves small, linear to narrowly elliptic; [Wahlenbergioid clade]
    3 Capsule dehiscent laterally (the pores nearly apical in some Campanula); flowers in spikes, racemes, or panicles; [mostly native species of various habitats (some of them weedy)].
          6 Inflorescence spicate, the flowers sessile, mostly in the axils of well-developed leaves; corollas rotate and style straight.
             7 Stamen filaments hairy towards the base; stem strict, unbranched; flowers chasmogamous, but often with the lowest flowers cleistogamous
          6 Inflorescence racemose or paniculate, the flowers pedicelled, sometimes axillary to well-developed leaves; corollas campanulate, funnelform, or rotate, with a straight or curved style
                 9 Stems weak and slender, reclining, 3-angled.
                 9 Stems more robust, erect, terete or nearly so.
                   10 Stem erect; leaf obviously serrate or crenate; [Panhandle FL and northwards, of upland habitats]
                   10 Stem sprawling; leaf entire or with a few obscure teeth; [FL, s. GA, and s. AL, of wetland habitats].