Campanulaceae

Non-woody (herbaceous) plants, usually with milky sap and capsular fruit; petals fused to form a tube, bell, or one or two lips;, and stamens fused or tightly clustered together at the tip to form a tube that collects pollen and surrounds the style, which collects and/or pushes the pollen out as it lengthens.

Flowers mostly blue or white (red in Cardinal Flower), arrangement of flowers various (racemes, cymes, spikes, panicles or solitary). Individual flowers usually producing both pollen and seeds, symmetrical in all directions (radially) or bilaterally (Lobelias), floral tube (hypanthium) present, flowers sometimes twisting 180 degrees in development (in Lobelias). Sepals usually 5, fused; petals usually 5, fused, forming a tubular or bell-shaped structure, or forming 1 or 2 lips with a slit in the upper lobe, the lobes not overlapping. Stamens usually 5, separate or fused toward the top, usually attached to the disk at the top of the ovary. Pollen presentation mechanism complex — pollen-bearing structures (anthers) separate but pressed together around the style, or fused to form a tube into which the pollen is shed, and the style grows through this tube, picking up pollen with specialized hairs or pushing pollen out. Carpels 2 or 3, fused; ovary usually located at least partially below the site at which the other flower parts are attached (inferior); style with pollen-collecting hairs (that fold inward) near its tip; number of stigmas equal to the number of carpels. Nectar disk present above the ovary. Fruit a capsule, opening by valves at the tip or pores at the side to release numerous small seeds.

Leaves usually alternate and spiral, simple, sometimes lobed, margins smooth to saw toothed. Leaf veins arising from both sides of the midvein (pinnate). Stipules absent. Hairs usually simple, one-celled.

Plants usually have milky sap and store carbohydrate as inulin.