Habitat: partial shade
Soil: any good garden soil
Height: 60 cm
Flowering: summer
Width: 25 cm
Foxgloves are well known and well loved, with their spires of distinctive tubular flowers. The common wild plant in Britain is Digitalis purpurea, whose flowers we used to place on all our fingers when we were children (whence the name Digitalis). Such things are frowned on nowadays, as all parts of the plants are toxic. This species is a biennial, but many are perennial, living in gardens for many years, and they come in a range of colours, some with amazing multicoloured flowers, not brilliant colours, but elegant and refined.
Digitalis ciliata is a reliable perennial, with narrow, rich green leaves lining the stems, and then lots of pale yellow flowers, packed along the spires. The name implies that is is hairy, but the hairs are not prominent; it is the soft yellow against the bright green that makes it so attractive.|
| Digitalis cariensis is a handsome perennial foxglove from Turkey, bearing creamy-white tubular flowers striped with red. | |
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| Digitalis lanata has interestingly coloured cream or pale brown flowers with violet-brown markings borne on dense flower spikes. | |
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| Digitalis lutea SDR6413 is a European native, commonly encountered in woods, with pale yellow flowers on slim flower spikes and glossy, dark green leaves. | |
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| Digitalis parviflora has dense racemes of deep orange-brown flowers with brown lips. | |
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| Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora is the white-flowered form of the foxglove. It is often seen in the wild in Britain, sometimes as a considerable proportion of the total population, but more often as a rarity amongst thes purple-flowered plants. | |
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| Digitalis trojana is a rare foxglove species from Turkey. It has unusual caramel-brown flowers which have a white lip and a patterned gold and rust-brown throat. The unopened flower spikes are silvery grey. It will readily self-seed under suitable conditions. |