19S FLORA HISTORTCA. 



FOX-GLOVE. Digitalis. 



Natural Order Luridce. Personece, Juss : a Genus of 

 the Didynamia Angiospermia Class. 



*' Explore the Fox-Glove's freckled bell." 



Mrs. Charlotte Smith, 



This beautiful but deleterious plant, which so 

 highly ornaments the banks of our hedgerows 

 and the borders of our woods, has been admitted 

 into the pleasure-grounds to embellish the shrub- 

 bery by its noble spikes of pendent flowers, 

 which hang with such peculiar grace from the 

 spiral branches, that they may be compared to a 

 tower of Chinese bells balanced for the pleasure 

 of the zephyrs. When these flowers advance 

 from the calyx, they are securely closed at the 

 end by the four clefts of the corolla, which meet 

 so exactly as to prevent the admission of air 

 until the parts of fructification have arrived at 

 their maturity, at which period the lips of the 

 flower burst open in a bell or trumpet shape, dis- 

 playing the beautitul leopard spots of the interior 

 of the flower. lu this state the corolla remains 



