Foxglove

“ Like its cousins the gerardias, the Downy False Foxglove is only a partial parasite, attaching its roots by disks or suckers to the roots of white oak or witch hazel; not only that, but, quite as frequently, groping blindly in the dark, it fastens suckers on its own roots, actually thieving from itself! It is this piratical tendency which makes transplanting of foxgloves into our gardens so very difficult, even when lifted with plenty of their beloved vegetable mould. ”

“ The beauty of the Foxglove in the garden is unquestioned; the spires of white bloom are, as Cotton Mather said of a pious and painful Puritan preacher, "a shining and white light in a golden candlestick improved for the sweet felicity of Mankind and to the honour of our Maker." ”

“ When it bends its tall stalks the Foxglove is making its obeisance to its tiny masters, or preparing to receive some little Elf who wishes to hide himself in the safe retreat afforded by its accommodating bells. In Ireland this flower is called Lusmore, or the Great Herb. It is there the Fairy Cap, whilst in Wales it becomes the Goblin’s Gloves.
As the Foxglove is the special flower of the Fairies, so is a four-leaved Clover their peculiar herb. It is believed only to grow in places frequented by the Elfin tribe, and to be gifted by them with magic power. ”

“ In the second year tall stems which bear the flowers will appear. In the autumn after it has flowered the Foxglove generally dies, though sometimes it may live for another year, or even two. Foxgloves, of course, will reproduce themselves by seed, as annuals and perennials do.
The Foxglove is something different from anything that we have seen as yet. The flowers grow on short flower stalks and hang down from the tall stems, a great many on each stem. Here there are no petals, but what we see and admire so much is the bell-shaped corolla, purple-red in colour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ CULTIVATED FOXGLOVE Fairy-Caps
Transcriber's Note: Foxglove is poisonous. Do not play with foxgloves.
Do you know the cultivated foxglove with its tall spikes of thimble-shaped flowers, prettily spotted inside? (Fig. 94.) And do you know that these flowers will fit on the ends of your fingers like tall caps on the heads of little fairies?
Perhaps there are foxgloves growing in your garden now. If there are, pick five blossoms off the stalk, selecting a large one for your thumb and a small one for your little finger; the others should be of a size in between these two. ”

“ The gorse and broom in spring, and in autumn the heather, are the marked features of the sandy Common: the foxglove, too, which has a strong distaste for lime, here often thrives in vast abundance, and makes a great splash of purple at the edge of the woods. But even apart from these more conspicuous plants, the "barren heath," as it is sometimes called, is well able to hold its own in a flower-lover's affection; though the absence of the finer orchids, and of some other flowers that pertain to the chalk, makes it perhaps less exciting as a field of adventure. ”

“ To yellow flowers growing in hedgerows, the Fairies have a special dislike, and will never frequent a place where they abound; but it is notorious that they are passionately fond of most flowers. It is part of their mission to give to each maturing blossom its proper hue, to guide creepers and climbing plants, and to teach young plants to move with befitting grace.
But the Foxglove is the especial delight of the Fairy tribe: it is the Fairy plant par excellence. ”

“ The last flower--the Foxglove--that we shall see at Willow Farm is quite different. It is a very tall plant. It is generally described as growing from three to five feet high, but I have seen a stem of eight or nine feet. We shall find it growing on the hedgebank in Little Orchard, and it also often grows in woods.
Some plants, as we know, are annuals, others are perennials. The Foxglove is neither; it is a biennial--that is a two years' plant. If you sow Foxglove seed you will have no flowers the first year, only a root and a great bunch of leaves. ”

“ Digita ́lis (dij-) , a genus of plants, nat. ord. Scrophulariaceæ, containing about twenty species of tall herbs, natives of Europe and Western Asia. The purple foxglove (D. purpurĕa) is a common wild flower in Britain, and several species are grown in gardens. Various preparations from the foxglove receive this name, and are used in medicine, principally in cases of heart disease.
Digitigra ́da (digitus, finger, toe, and gradi, to walk) , a section of the Carnivora, so called from their walking on the ends of their toes; as the dog, cat, and their allies. See Plantigrade. ”

“ There shall be no grief there nor sorrow; white are the teeth there, black are the eyebrows, a delight to the eye is the number of our host, and on every cheek is the hue of the foxglove.
"The crimson of the foxglove is in every brake, delightful to the eye [there] the blackbird's eggs. Although pleasant to behold are the plains of Innisfail, after frequenting the Great Plain rarely wouldst thou [remember them] . Though heady to thee the ale of Innisfail, headier the ale of the great land, a beauty of a land, the land I speak of. Youth never grows there into old age. ”

“ I have grouped with the Foxglove in the illustrative plate; for where we meet one, we generally find the other. Foxgloves and Fern have so constantly been associated in my Autumn garlands, that I never think of dissolving their partnership of beauty: indeed, both would suffer by separation. Dearly as I have, from childhood, loved the Fern, yet now it is yet more welcome; for it always recalls to my mind's eye a magnificent scene, to which it added peculiar beauty. ”

“ The worst is that the gap they leave when they die is large; moreover, as in the case of foxgloves, the black stump is both an ugly object in itself, and a difficult one to get rid of. When are we to possess a really good perennial foxglove I wonder? There is a perennial yellow one, but it is a poor thing, hardly worthy of its name. Perennial verbascums are also few in number, most of the family showing a more or less aloe-like fashion of flowering. In their case one is able to console oneself. ”

“ Among plants as among souls, there are all degrees of backsliders. The foxglove, which is guilty of only sly, petty larceny, wears not the equivalent of the striped suit and the shaved head; nor does the mistletoe, which steals crude food from the tree, but still digests it itself, and is therefore only a dingy yellowish green. Such plants, however, as the broom-rape, Pine Sap, beech-drops, the Indian Pipe, and the dodder--which marks the lowest stage of degradation of them all--appear among their race branded with the mark of crime as surely as was Cain. ”

“ Here eglantine embalm’d the air,
Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;
The primrose pale and violet flower,
Found in each cleft a narrow bower;
Foxglove and nightshade, side by side,
Emblems of punishment and pride,
Group’d their dark hues with every stain
The weather-beaten crags retain. ”

“ Foxgloves, you know, cannot compete with ling or Scotch heather on its native heath. They are denizens of a deeper and richer mould, growing generally on fat wayside banks or in the ditches by hedgerows—always the wealthiest and most luxuriantly manured of any wild places, because there birds perch, and wild animals take refuge, and snails and beetles die, and robins perish, that hedgerow weeds may batten on their decaying bodies. The hedge, in point of fact, is the main shelter and asylum for beasties great and small in our workaday England. ”

“ Narrow footpaths curve in and out and up and down among the fields and farms, the orchards and the glimmering glades, and there the foxgloves grow so tall that they lift their dappled bells level with the eyes. ”

“ The girls gathered these as their first specimens.
"I wonder why they're called foxgloves?" said Lettice. "They've nothing to do with foxes."
"It's simply a corruption of 'good folks' gloves', meaning 'fairies' gloves'," said Miss Maitland. "People gave the plants much more romantic names in olden days than modern scientists do. I confess I like 'Queen of the Meadows' better than Spiræa Ulmaria, and I think 'poor man's weather-glass' a far better description of the scarlet pimpernel than Anagallis arvensis. We shan't find many flowers here, among the trees ”

“ Distribution--Northern United States to Florida, chiefly along Atlantic Coast.
It is a special pity to gather the gerardias, which, as they grow, seem to enjoy life to the full, and when picked, to be so miserable they turn black as they dry. Like their relatives the foxgloves, they are difficult to transplant except with a large ball of soil, because it is said they are more or less parasitic, fastening their roots on those of other plants. ”

“ The Meadow Foxtail (Alopecurus pratensis) bears a general resemblance to Timothy (page 25) , to which it is not distantly allied; but from which it differs in having no pale or scales. Its cylindrical panicle is yellowish-green, with silvery hairs, the branches bearing three to six spikelets. It is a perennial plant, and produces runners. It forms a valuable portion of all good pastures, the herbage being exceedingly nutritive. It flowers in May and June. The name is Greek, signifying Foxtail. There are three other native species in the genus:—
I. Slender Foxtail (A. agrestis) . Annual. ”

“ Glasgow wanted gravel for the new railway,{14} and bought a bit of a hillside from old Danny Quin at Cahirdreen. There was a big patch of furze there, and the men said that when the first blast went off a grey fox ran out of it and away into the hills; a sort of fox that no one had ever seen before. They say that there is an old prophecy about the bad luck that is to come when that hill is thrown into Tully Lake, and that is just what is to be done where the line crosses a corner of the lake. They believe that the fox is a witch or a fairy, and that it will bring the bad luck. ”

“ The meadow foxtail (Fig. 104) is a valuable grass with broad, long, and succulent leaves. It spreads by means of prostrate stolons. The spikelets have short stalks, as can be seen on bending the ear on itself, and each spikelet contains only one flower. The silky awns give the ear a silvery grey colour. The grass flowers in early spring. The slender foxtail (Fig. 105) is a most injurious weed of cornfields. It can be distinguished from the meadow foxtail by its less vigorous appearance, by the thinner and more pointed ear, and by the black patches on the ear. It is often called “black bent.” ”

“ He learned, too, the lessons of prudence and foresight which keep foxes alive when ice and snow have locked many of their larders. Once, when he was crossing a pasture with Father Fox, the latter stopped and stood like a pointing dog, one velvety black bent forefoot in the air, while with outstretched muzzle he sniffed the faintest of warm scents, which seemed to float from a clump of tangled dry grass. Stealing forward like a shadow, the old fox sprang at the tussock. ”

“ They tell me that if the fox would remain in the bosom of the frozen earth he would be safe, or if be would run in a straight line away no foxhound could overtake him; but, having left his pursuers far behind, he stops to rest and listen till they come up, and when he runs he circles round to his old haunts, where the hunters await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall many rods, and then leap off far to one side, and he appears to know that water will not retain his scent. ”

“ Getting a steady foothold at last, Red Fox trotted on alertly, scrutinizing the mysterious glitter in the hope of seeing a rabbit or a squirrel, or some luckless bird frozen to its perch during sleep. He looked everywhere except directly under his feet, where he had no reason to expect anything. A fox, however, is always ready for the unexpected. There is little that can escape his alert vigilance. All at once he became aware of a kind of dark shadow beneath the translucent surface over which he was travelling. ”

“ It was the enemy—it was man. I recognized him at first sight, unlike though he was to the being I had vaguely imagined. There is no reason for surprise that I did. For what beast of the field or wild stands erect with such ease on his hind-feet, or has face, fore-paws and ears as bare of fur as is the skin of a mangy fox? Moreover, I caught his scent; and it was the same scent as had tainted the stone on the cliff, that tainted the faggots—evidence hardly less convincing than the steady gaze of his eyes and the shout he raised. At the awful sound we turned tail and melted into the brake. ”

“ They learned to spring and pounce like lightning, with outspread paws, just ahead of where the grass stirred ever so slightly. If successful, they would kill with one nip a plump, round-headed, short-tailed meadow-mouse. Every night they went farther and farther, until at last with Mother Fox they covered the whole range, at the brisk walk which is the usual hunting-gait of a fox, with frequent pauses and sniffings and listenings. ”