The area of central Bosnia, particularly along the flow of the rivers Bosnia and Vrbas, abounds in rare specimen of the plant kingdom. In the bluebell family (Campanulaceae) a particular place belongs to the Bosnian bluebell (Symphyandra Homfamanni), also called Hofmann’s costamen. J. Pantocsek described in its original habitant near Banja Luka and Jajce in 1881. The bluebell is a biennia, sometimes triennial plant with beet-like thickenings on its root. The stalk is straight and branching out from the bottom. Its is 20 to 50 cm high and covered with short, stiff fluff. The leaves, 5 to 10 cm long, grow alternatively closer to the bottom of the stalk. They are oval in shape, either obtuse or acute, gradually narrowing towards the broad indented leaf stem. The leaves are irregularly and roughly jagged on their edges.
The bluebell has white hanging flowers. The corolla of the flower becomes yellowish-white in the process of development, 2.5 to 3.5 cm long and round 2.5 cm wide. The whole flower has a bell-like shape with five short acute or obtuse petals covered with long down. The seeds are reddish-brown, oval and flat in shape, with a narrow light edge, 1.2 mm long and 0.6 mm wide. When the seed grains are ripe, they fall out of the three-eyed capsule. The plant is in full blossom in July and August. The bluebell grows on lower slopping grounds of mountains, in the range between 150 and 600 meters height above sea level. The geological basis is different, from limestone and gabbro to serpentine and clayish slate. It can also be found in the thinned out forests of manna ash, hornbeam and sessile oak. It was also found near the ruins of the old towns of Jajce and Srebrenik. It belongs to the endemic plants of central Bosnia and Herzegovina.
