FIGWORT TRIBE 19 



just at the season of its flowering in order to ensure its efficacj'. The 

 influence of the Digitalis over the action of the heart, and its power of re- 

 straining in a short time the too rapid circulation of the blood, as well as it? 

 other uses, render this medicine of much worth in the hands of the skilful 

 practitioner, though its powerful and dangerous properties make it safe only 

 in the hands of one well acquainted with diseases and their remedies. " The 

 history of this plant," says Dr. George Johnston, "might afl"ord a practical 

 censure to such as sneer at the pursuits of the botanist, and are continually 

 asking, ' Cui bono f for it grew neglected, until Dr. Withering, a botanist, 

 made known its virtues." The Foxglove had indeed been praised by old 

 herbalists ; as Gerarde, in 1597, wrote of various uses to which it was applied, 

 though he had not apparently discovered its influence over the action of the 

 heart ; and Parkinson, who was an apothecaiy of London, and herbalist to 

 Charles I., regretted some years after, that few physicians used it, and that 

 it was almost entirely neglected. This author says : "And it hath beene of 

 later experience found also to be so effectuall against the falling sicknesse, 

 that divers have been cured thereby." Since Dr. Withering called the atten- 

 tion of physicians to this plant, the medicine has been in almost daily use, 

 not in England only, l)ut on the Continent ; and in Paris it is so highly 

 valued that the flower is often painted on the door-posts of an apothecary's 

 dwelling. Modern practitioners do not, however, include among their 

 remedies that outward use of its leaves which suggested the old Italian 

 proverb, '■'- Aralda tutie piaghe scdda." " Aralda (Foxglove) salveth all sores." 

 Handsome as is our wild Foxglove, it seems scarcely to equal a flower which 

 Colonel Mundy describes as resembling it, and which is the growth of Van 

 Diemen's Land. "There are," says this writer, "several very pretty Iris- 

 like bulbs in the moister soil, and in the lowlands of the Botany scrub. 1 

 noticed a crimson and orange flower, like the Foxglove in form, very hand- 

 some, but so hard and horny in texture, that the blossoms actually ring with 

 a clear metallic sound as you shake them. It might be the fairies' dinner- 

 bell calling them to their dew and ambrosia. Alas ! there are no ' good 

 people ' in Australia, No one ever heard of a ghost, or a bogle, or fetch 

 here. All is too absolutely material to afford a relic for imagination and 

 superstition." 



The Foxglove clump has a good eftect either in garden or shrubbery, 

 and our common species is a frequent ornament of the parterre. Several 

 exotic species also, as the Great Yellow Foxglove, are beautiful plants. This 

 is a native of Germany, and is very luxuriant on mountains of that land as 

 well as in the Swiss Alps. The Madeira Foxglove is another magnificent 

 species, which, in the gardens of Ghent, sometimes grows to the height of 

 ten feet. 



9. Snapdragon {Antirrhinum). 



1. Lesser Snapdragon {A. wdntium). — Leaves mostly alternate, 

 linear, lanceolate ; spikes very few-flowered, lax ; segments of calyx longer 

 than the corolla ; annual. This is a very much smaller plant than the 

 following species, and its flowers have little to attract in their dull purplish 

 tint. The species is readily known from any allied plants by its leafy sepals, 



3—2 



