FOXGLOVE  , a genus of biennial and perennial

plants of the natural order Scrophulariaceae . The common or purple foxglove, Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), one-third nat. size . 1 . Corolla cut open showing the showing the thick axial pia- four stamens; rather more centa bearing numerous small than half nat. size. seeds . 2 . Unripe fruit cut lengthwise, 3 . Ripe capsule split open . D. purpurea, is common in dry hilly pastures and rocky places and by road-sides in various parts of Europe; it ranges in Great Britain from Cornwall and Kent to Orkney, but it does not It flourishes best in siliceous soils, and is not found in the Jura and Swiss Alps . The characters of the plant are as follows: stem erect, roundish, downy, leafy below, and from 18 in. to 5 ft. or more in height; leaves alternate, crenate, rugose, ovate or elliptic oblong, and of a dull green, witli the under surface downy and paler than the upper; radical leaves together with their stalks often a foot in length; root of numerous, slender, whitish fibres; flowers 14-2J in. long, pendulous, on one side of the stem, purplish crimson, and hairy and marked with eye-like spots within; segments of calyx ovate, acute, cleft to the base; 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); anthers yellow and bilobed; capsule bivalved, ovate and pointed; and seeds numerous, small, oblong, pitted and of a pale brown . As Parkinson re-marks of the plant, " It flowreth seldome before July, and the seed is ripe in August "; but it may occasionally be found in blossom as late as September . Many varieties of the common foxglove have been raised by cultivation, with flowers varying in colour from white to deep rose and purple; in the variety gloxinioides the flowers are almost regular, suggesting those of the cultivated gloxinia . Other species of foxglove with variously coloured flowers have been introduced into Britain from the continent of Europe .

The plants may be propagated by unflowered off-sets from the roots, but being biennials are best raised from seed . The foxglove, probably from folks'-

glove, that is 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 under the name of 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 pints 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 designation for the plant . Other species of foxglove or Digitalis although found in botanical collections are not generally grown .