Family: bellflowers (Campanulaceae)
Flowering time: May–September
Size: 10–50 cm
Habitat: meadows, rocky and gravelly slopes, among shrubs
The erect stem of the round-headed rampion (Phyteuma orbiculare) is rarely leafed with sessile, narrow-lanceolate leaves, which often have a heart-shaped base. Egg-shaped to lanceolate basal leaves with rounded or heart-shaped bases are petiolate. Its upwardly curved tubular flowers are blue; they are 10–15 mm long. They are grouped into a globe, head-shaped inflorescence at the top of the stem, which at the base is surrounded by involucral leaves. These are egg-shaped or lanceolate and long-pointed, and at the base rounded. They are bare or only hairy along the edge, and about as long as the flowering head.
Round-headed rampion grows on barren, but humus-rich, moist soils; it is best suited to bright habitats in cooler locations on a calcareous substrate. It is widespread in the mountainous belt of northern, western, central and southern Slovenia.
