Blazing like summer wildfire along forest rides and waste ground, foxgloves tell a marvellous tale that blends old folklore with modern, life-saving medicine, says
Nicola Chester
Nothing captures the deep, seductive languor of high summer quite like the nodding purple-clustered spires of foxgloves. Whether they’re waving shadily at the back of a cottage garden, enchanting a midsummer woodland glade or spectacularly crowding forestry clearfells, railway embankments or a forgotten patch of rough ground behind the supermarket, foxgloves are as recognisable and loved as they are feared.
Summer walks as a child beside my formidable Northamptonshire Nan were punctuated by floral wisdoms. The roadside racemes of tumbling, tubular bells would always get a nod and “thar’ll raise the dead and fell the living!” Every part of this cardiac curative is also poisonous.
Flowering from June to September, foxgloves are a valuable source of nectar, and the leaves and flowers are eaten by moth caterpillars, such as the foxglove pug and yellow underwing. But foxgloves have a particular relationship with bees, their premier pollinator – especially long-tongued species such as the common carder. The surly, protruding lower lip of the down-sloping bells acts as a landing pad. Dark spots inside each flower’s pale throat act as guiding landing lights, detected by a bee’s ultraviolet vision.
To encourage cross-pollination, foxgloves have evolved to maximise a bee’s methodical foraging style. The lower flowers – which are female – open first and as the bee pushes up the corolla tube to sip the nectar at the back, it is covered in pollen. Once it reaches the still-closed male flowers, it flies to the bottom of another plant to begin again, rattling and ringing the clapperless bells. When the flowers have been open a few days, the pollen-bearing stamens wither and the receptive male style protrudes to accept pollen deposits from another plant.
COTTAGE GARDEN DELIGHT
It’s not uncommon to be eye-to-eye with the chequered throats of these towering stems, each of which might produce 70 flowers. In the wild, pink and white versions appear, but cultivated garden varieties come in yellow, apricot, mauve and cream. They bring wildlife, height and drama to gardens – but if you’re touching them, wear gloves at
