Foxglove

The familiar spikes of pink-purple two-lipped flowers of this native woodland plant appear from June.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Digitalis purpurea
Family: 
Plantains
Family Latin name: 
PLANTAGINACEAE
Category: 
Flowering Plants
Vernacular names: 

Fairy gloves, Fairy bells, Floppy dock, Tod-tails

Species description

Species description

The familiar spikes of pink-purple two-lipped flowers of this native woodland plant appear from June. The Anglo-Saxon name Foxes glofa means the glove of a fox, because the flowers resemble the fingers of a glove. Faeries wear the flowers as shoes to walk silently, and the mottlings are their fingermarks. A leaf extract is a powerful cardiac stimulant, with Digitoxin being the most powerful ingredient. The concentration is highest when the flower spike is about two-thirds expended, and the seeds have not ripened.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)

Details

Species family information

Many members have flat leaves that seem to lay on the ground, hence the derivation of the name from the Latin ‘planta’, sole of the foot. The flowers are on long, leafless stalks. The best known plantain is the banana.

Category information

Nucleic multicellular photosynthetic organisms lived in freshwater communities on land as long ago as a thousand million years, and their terrestrial descendants are known from the late Pre-Cambrian 850 million years ago. Embryophyte land plants are known from the mid Ordovician, and land plant structures such as roots and leaves are recognisable in mid Devonian fossils. Seeds seem to have evolved by the late Devonian. The Embryophytes are green land plants that form the bulk of the Earth’s vegetation. They have specialised reproductive organs and nurture the young embryo sporophyte. Most obtain their energy by photosynthesis, using sunlight to synthesise food from Carbon Dioxide and Water.

The earliest known plant group is the Archaeplastida, which were autotrophic. Listing just the surviving descendants, which evolved in turn, we have the Red Algae, the Chlorophyte Green Algae, the Charophyte Green Algae, and then the Embryophyta or land plants. The earliest embryophytes were the Liverworts, followed by the Hornworts, and the Mosses. Then we have the Vascular Plants, the Lycophytes and Ferns, followed by the Spermatophytes or seed plants, the Gnetophytes, Conifers, Ginkgos, and Cycads, and finally the Magnoliophyta (Angiosperms) or flowering plants.