page_title: Bluebell wood
hierarchical_section_title: Bluebell wood
caption_attribution_description: English: A bluebell wood in Belgium; Hallerbos (Flemish name) or Bois de Halle (French name)
context_page_description: A bluebell wood is a woodland that in springtime has a carpet of flowering bluebells underneath a newly forming leaf canopy. The thicker the summer canopy, the more the ground-cover is suppressed. This encourages a dense carpet of bluebells, whose leaves mature and die down by early summer.
  Bluebell woods may be found in all parts of Great Britain and Ireland, as well as elsewhere in Europe. Bluebells are a common indicator species for ancient woodlands, so bluebell woods are likely to date back to at least 1600.
  Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of the romantic poets, was very keen on bluebells, as his poem "May Magnificat" shows.
  And azuring-over greybell makes
  Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
  In his journal entry for 9 May 1871 Hopkins says:
  In the little wood opposite the light they stood in blackish spreads or sheddings like spots on a snake. The heads are then like thongs and solemn in grain and grape-colour.
context_section_description: A bluebell wood is a woodland that in springtime has a carpet of flowering bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) underneath a newly forming leaf canopy. The thicker the summer canopy, the more the ground-cover is suppressed. This encourages a dense carpet of bluebells, whose leaves mature and die down by early summer.
  Bluebell woods may be found in all parts of Great Britain and Ireland, as well as elsewhere in Europe. Bluebells are a common indicator species for ancient woodlands, so bluebell woods are likely to date back to at least 1600.
  Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of the romantic poets, was very keen on bluebells, as his poem "May Magnificat" shows.
  And azuring-over greybell makes
  
  Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
  In his journal entry for 9 May 1871 Hopkins says:
  In the little wood opposite the light they stood in blackish spreads or sheddings like spots on a snake. The heads are then like thongs and solemn in grain and grape-colour. But in the clough through the light they come in falls of sky-colour washing the brows and slacks of the ground with vein-blue, thickening at the double, vertical themselves and the young grass and brake-fern combed vertical, but the brake struck the upright of all this with winged transomes. It was a lovely sight. - The bluebells in your hand baffle you with their inscape, made to every sense. If you draw your fingers through them they are lodged and struggle with a shock of wet heads; the long stalks rub and click and flatten to a fan on one another like your fingers themselves would when you passed the palms hard across one another, making a brittle rub and jostle like the noise of a hurdle strained by leaning against; then there is the faint honey smell and in the mouth the sweet gum when you bite them.
caption: Bluebell wood, Hallerbos, Belgium
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-W150", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2010:05:01 08:23:47", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "258", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-W150", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2010:05:01 08:23:47", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9768", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "15204", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:05:01 08:23:47", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:05:01 08:23:47", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "55/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "137/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "9560", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}