A one-sided spire up to two metres of nodding purple thimbles, each spotted maroon with white rings inside the lower lip
Foxglove — Digitalis purpurea.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Foxglove
Biennial · flowers June to September
Digitalis purpurea — Plantaginaceae
The foxglove is the tall biennial spire of nodding purple-pink thimbles that follows the felling or burning of woodland, and grows on acid banks, hedgerows and heaths across Britain. It is the most famous poisonous plant in the British flora and also one of the most useful: William Withering's Account of the Foxglove (1785) turned a Shropshire folk remedy for dropsy into the cardiac glycoside therapy that still uses digoxin today.
How to spot them
- ▸A one-sided spire up to two metres, the flowers opening from the bottom upwards
- ▸Tubular, nodding, pinkish-purple bells, the lower lip spotted maroon inside with white-ringed eyes
- ▸A rosette of soft, downy, grey-green, wrinkled, oval leaves in the first year; flowers in the second
- ▸Acid soils: woodland clearings, recently felled or burned ground, hedgebanks, heaths and sea cliffs
- ▸Long-tongued bumblebees crawl right inside; guide spots and hairs line the lower lip
How to know it
William Withering's account of 1785 turned a Shropshire folk cure for dropsy into modern heart medicine
Foxglove — An Account of the Foxglove and Some of its Medical Uses, the origin of digitalis therapy.
The drug digoxin, used for atrial fibrillation and heart failure, is a glycoside from this genus
Foxglove — digoxin comes mainly from Digitalis lanata, digitoxin from Digitalis purpurea.
Its genus name means 'finger-like', and its country names include dead man's bells, witches' gloves and fairy thimbles
Foxglove — Digitalis, from Latin digitus.
A biennial that makes a rosette of downy wrinkled leaves in its first year and flowers in the second, then dies
Foxglove.
Long thought a figwort relative, it is now placed with the plantains after molecular work
Foxglove — Digitalis moved from Scrophulariaceae to Plantaginaceae.
County flower of Leicestershire, Argyll and Monmouthshire; one of the first plants to appear after woodland is felled or burned
Foxglove.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Plantaginaceae; formerly placed in Scrophulariaceae, the figworts
- •Digitalis means 'finger-like', from Latin digitus, for the shape of the corolla
- •William Withering published An Account of the Foxglove and Some of its Medical Uses in 1785, crediting a Shropshire herbalist's family recipe
- •Digitoxin comes chiefly from Digitalis purpurea and digoxin chiefly from the woolly foxglove, Digitalis lanata
- •Every part is poisonous; symptoms include nausea, visual disturbance and dangerous slowing or irregularity of the heart
- •County flower of Leicestershire, Argyll and Monmouthshire in Plantlife's 2002 County Flowers survey
- •Seed is long-lived in the soil, which is why foxgloves erupt after coppicing, clearfelling or fire
- •Pollinated mainly by long-tongued bumblebees, guided in by the spotted lower lip
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- Woodland Trust — Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)