Commemorating Göran Wahlenberg (1780–1851), a Swedish botanist.
Annual or perennial herbs with a taproot, sometimes rhizomatous. Leaves alternate, opposite, or whorled, more or less stalkless, becoming smaller up the stem. Flowers terminal, bell- or wheel-shaped, solitary or cymose. Sepals mostly 5, persistent in fruit. Stamens 5. Ovary inferior, with 2-5 chambers. Fruit a capsule.
Grown for the delicate blue or purple flowers.
Erect plants with delicate flowers; capsules splitting at the tip.
About 200 species, mostly from the southern hemisphere. Australia has 21 endemic species.
Source: (2002). Campanulaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.