Foxgloves
Please click here to view all images (link to Googls Photos)
Foxgloves
What’s in a name?
Most of our plants have English names, some of them dating back hundreds of years. How were these chosen? Why is this plant called ‘Foxglove’?
Its name is derived from the old English 'foxes glofe/glofa' or 'fox's glove'. The scientific name Digitalis means ‘finger’.
Image 01 ‘Fox and folk tales’
Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) is a common hedgerow wild flower and a popular garden plant. The wild form has pink flowers in most cases, with occasional albino specimens, but there are many cultivated colour forms. The wild form is a biennial, producing flowers in its second year, and then dying, but some cultivated forms are longer-lived.
It is a very important source of pollen and nectar for wild Bumblebees, both in the wild and in gardens.
Image 02 ‘Foxgloves’
Image 03 ‘Anne’s Foxglove artwork’
Flower structure and pollination
Image 04 ‘Foxglove flower detail’
The size of the corolla (the flower tube) has evolved to fit large insects like bumblebees. Spot-like markings guide the bee into the flower and towards the nectary surrounding the base of the ovary. Inside the floral tube the bee will come into contact with the stamens and stigma. The stamens mature first, the stigma maturing and its lobes opening as the flowers become older and after the stamens have shed most of their pollen. This helps to limit self-pollination.
Image 05 ‘Garden Bumblebee entering Foxglove flower’
Image 06 ‘Garden Bumblebee leaving Foxglove flower’
Self-pollination is further limited by the behaviour of foraging bees which learn that the older female flowers at the bottom of the inflorescence spike provide more nectar. They therefore generally visit the older flowers at the bottom of the inflorescence first, depositing pollen from another plant on the open stigmas, before moving gradually upwards to the younger flowers which are shedding pollen and where the stigmatic lobes are still closed.
Long hairs at the entrance to the flower help to discourage visiting insects – even Honeybees - which are too small to come into contact with the stamens and stigma from entering.
Image 07 ‘Honeybee unable to enter Foxglove flower’
Interestingly in Costa Rica and Colombia, where Foxgloves were introduced around 200 years ago, Hummingbirds as well as bumblebees take nectar from the flowers and are effective pollinators. Some populations of these Foxgloves have evolved longer flower tubes as a result of association with Hummingbirds.
When the seed capsules are ripe they split open and the thousands of tiny seeds in each capsulpe are dispersed as the plant either shakes in the wind or is brushed by a passing animal.
Image 08 ‘Foxglove seed capsule split’
Caution! Foxglove should be handed with care and hands washed afterwards. The plant is highly poisonous!
Anne and John Bebbington
June 2024
Images - Please click here to view all images (link to Googls Photos)
1. Fox & folk tales
2. Foxglove plants
3. Anne’s Foxglove artwork
4. Foxglove flower detail
5. A Garden Bumblebee entering a Foxglove flower
6. A Garden Bumblebee leaving a Foxglove flower, with pollen on its thorax
7. A Honeybee unable to enter a Foxglove flower
8. Foxglove seed capsule splitting
nettles
Images are, top to bottom,
as the text reads.
Please click here for enhanced
images to also include butterflies
and moths' life cycles.
(link to Google Photos)
