FOXGLOVE, a genus of biennial and perennial plants of the family Scrophulariaceae and known botanically as Digitalis. It contains 25 species found in Europe, western Asia and the Canary Islands. The common or purple foxglove, D. purpurea, is com mon in dry hilly pastures and rocky places and by road-sides in various parts of Europe; it ranges in Great Britain from Corn wall and Kent to Orkney, and is sparingly naturalized in North America. It flourishes best in siliceous soils, and is not found in .the Jura and Swiss Alps. Its characters are : stem erect, roundish, downy, leafy below, and from 18 in. to 5 ft. or more in height ; leaves alternate, ovate or elliptic oblong, and dull green, with the under surface downy and paler than the upper; root of numerous, slender, whitish fibres; flowers in. long, pendulous, on one side of the stem, purplish crimson, and hairy and marked with eye-like spots within; 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) ; capsule ovate and pointed ; and seeds numerous, small. It nor mally flowers in July, and ripens its seed in August, but may occasionally be found in blossom as late as September. Many varieties have been raised by cultivation, with flowers varying in colour from white to deep rose and purple.
The foxglove, probably from folk's-glove (i.e., fairies' glove), is known by a great variety of popular names in Britain. In the south of 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 as 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 gants 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 des ignation for the plant. Other species of Digitalis although found in botanical collections are not generally grown. For medicinal uses see DIGITALIS.