Foxgloves...

Friday 17th June 2011

The beautiful stately foxglove is one of my favourite wild plants...

Foxgloves are a native biennial common in woods, hedgerows and open places throughout Britain...  Foxgloves are very pretty allowed to grow wild in our gardens...  

A well loved plant but extremely poisonous...

The long tubular flowers are popular for bees who crawl inside to extract the nectar...

In folklore foxglove was credited with the ability to break fairy power over children and adults.

In Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the foxglove is surrounded by myth and magic, and country people refer to it as the king of herbs... the flower has often been celebrated in poetry...

The foxglove leaves are used as the source of the drug digitoxin, used in the treatment of heart disease, to slow the pace of the heart-beat...  the plant was also used in ancient (if dangerous) herbal remedies...

The foxglove should not be picked and brought inside for flower arranging as it is said to cause people in the surrounding vicinity who breathe in the scent to become sleepy...