Digitalis purpurea L.
foxglove
Biennial or short-lived perennial. Basal rosette giving rise to densely hairy simple stems to c. 2.5 m high. Petiole long and winged; upper stem lvs with much shorter petioles. Lamina 10-25 × 3.5-12 cm, lanceolate to elliptic or ovate, hairy to glabrate above, ± grey-tomentulose with crisped hairs beneath, crenate or crenulate; base cuneate to attenuate. Racemes to c. 60 cm long, with many nodding fls. Bracts lanceolate, shortly glandular-hairy, decreasing in size upwards, > pedicels; pedicels tomentulose, 5-15 mm long. Calyx 8-17 mm long, shortly glandular-hairy, deeply lobed; lobes imbricate, ovate, obtuse or acute. Corolla mostly 3.5-5 cm long; tube campanulate and inflated above constricted base, usually pinkish purple with dark purple white-ringed spots in lower part, sometimes pure white, glabrous; lobes short and rounded. Stamens included. Capsule 10-15 mm long, ovoid. Seeds oblong, alveolate, truncate.
N.; S.; St.: very widespread, but often absent in drier areas; C.
W. Europe, S. to Spain and E. to Czechoslovakia 1867
Mostly open disturbed areas, especially poor pastures, scrub and forest margins, stony river beds, roadsides, tracksides.
FL Oct-Jan.
Poisonous (Connor 1977).
Foxglove is regarded as a serious weed and is one of the commonest naturalised spp. in wetter parts of N.Z., being abundant in West Coast areas of the South Id, where it grows to c. 1000 m. The white form is often found amongst the commoner purple form. In the past foxgloves were cultivated as a source of the drug digitalin in N.Z. Another W. European sp., D. lutea L., is being increasingly cultivated but, although it seeds freely, spontaneous plants have not yet been reported from outside gardens. Plants are glabrous or nearly so, and have greenish yellow corollas c. 2 cm long.
