Spanish Bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica), in this instance resembling the cultivar ‘Excelsior’. Famous as a horticultural armada that has jeopardised the future of England’s native bluebell woodlands, but only a very infrequent garden escape in Victoria. In fact, Spanish Bluebells have escaped cultivation so infrequently here that ALA has just two collection records in the Melbourne metropolitan, and six total in the state.
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I stumbled upon this cluster of plants below the edge of a public car park, on a narrow terrace above earthen batter and the Mernda/Hurstbridge tracks on their approach to Flinders Street Station. The plants are somewhat amazingly positioned, as they are growing beneath a large Nightshade (one of our mysterious hairy Solanums, more soon) on an island of accumulated matter atop a concrete utility chamber. Likely originating in garden waste (given the location, tipped quite literally out of the back of a car), this would appear to be the extent of the established plants although there is always the possibility that the colony will spread onto the batter..
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Search for information about Hyacinthoides hispanica in the Flora of Victoria
View information and occurrences of Hyacinthoides hispanica on the Atlas of Living Australia