FOXGLOVE

This article appears in Volume V10, Page 771 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: FLA-FRA

FOXGLOVE , a genus of biennial and perennial plants of the natural order Scrophulariaceae. The common or purple foxglove,
Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), one-third nat. size.
1. Corolla cut open showing the showing the thick axial pia-
four stamens; rather more centa bearing numerous small
than half nat. size. seeds.
2. Unripe fruit cut lengthwise, 3. Ripe capsule split open.
D. purpurea, is common in dry hilly pastures and rocky places and by road-sides in various parts of Europe; it ranges in

Great

GREAT

Britain from

Cornwall

CORNWALL

and Kent to Orkney, but it does not
It flourishes best in siliceous soils, and is not found in the Jura and Swiss Alps. The characters of the plant are as follows:

stem

STEM (O. Eng. staefn, stemn, cf. Du. stain, Ger. Stamm, &c., probably related to " staff ")

erect, roundish, downy, leafy below, and from 18 in. to 5 ft. or more in height; leaves alternate, crenate, rugose, ovate or elliptic oblong, and of a dull green, witli the under surface downy and paler than the upper; radical leaves together with their stalks often a foot in length; root of numerous, slender, whitish fibres;

flowers

FLOWERS, ARTIFICIAL

14-2J in. long, pendulous, on one side of the

stem

STEM (O. Eng. staefn, stemn, cf. Du. stain, Ger. Stamm, &c., probably related to " staff ")

, purplish crimson, and hairy and marked with eye-like spots within; segments of calyx ovate, acute, cleft to the base; corolla bell-shaped'with a broadly two-lipped obtuse mouth, the upper lip entire or obscurely divided; stamens four, two longer than the other two (didynamous); anthers yellow and bilobed; capsule bivalved, ovate and pointed; and seeds numerous, small, oblong, pitted and of a

pale

PALE (through Fr. pal, from Lat. palms, a stake, for paglus, from the stem pag- of pangere, to fix; "
pole
" is from the same original source)

brown. As Parkinson re-marks of the plant, " It flowreth seldome before July, and the seed is ripe in August "; but it may occasionally be found in blossom as

late

LATE

as September. Many varieties of the common foxglove have been raised by cultivation, with

flowers

FLOWERS, ARTIFICIAL

varying in colour from white to deep rose and purple; in the variety gloxinioides the flowers are almost regular, suggesting those of the cultivated gloxinia. Other species of foxglove with variously coloured flowers have been introduced into Britain from the continent of Europe. The plants may be propagated by unflowered off-sets from the roots, but being biennials are best raised from seed.
The foxglove, probably from folks'-

glove

GLOVE (O. Eng. glof, perhaps connected with Gothic lofa, the palm of the hand)

, that is fairies'

glove

GLOVE (O. Eng. glof, perhaps connected with Gothic lofa, the palm of the hand)

, is known by a

great

GREAT

variety of popular names in Britain. In the

south

SOUTH
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634–1716)

Scotland

it is called bloody fingers; farther north, dead-men's-bells; and on the eastern borders, ladies' thimbles, wild mercury and Scotch mercury. In Ireland it is generally known under the name of fairy thimble. Among its Welsh synonyms are menyg-ellyllon (elves' gloves), menyg y llwynog (fox's gloves), bysedd cochion (redfingers) and bysedd y cwn (dog's fingers). In France its designations are pints de notre dame and doigts de la Vierge. The German name Fingerhut (thimble) suggested to Fuchs, in 1542, the employment of the Latin adjective digitalis as a designation for the plant. Other species of foxglove or Digitalis although found in botanical collections are not generally grown. For medicinal uses see

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