PERENNIALS AND BIENNIALS 



Digitalis purpurea is a noble plant of the easiest 

 cultivation. It is called Foxglove in common 

 parlance, which seems a stupid sort of name, but 

 it is claimed that it was originally known as the 

 Fairies' Glove, or Fairy Folk's Glove, then 

 simply Folk's Glove, and finally Foxglove. 

 This is on a par with the inn kept by the pious 

 Puritan who displayed as a sign, " God encompass- 

 eth us," to be changed, as the letters disappeared 

 and tradition only remained, into "Goat and Com- 

 passes." Digitalis, according to Gray, is a peren- 

 nial, but in my experience it is a biennial, and never 

 blooms a second time. It casts its own seed in the 

 most generous manner, and a single stalk may pro- 

 duce fully a hundred thousand seeds. The seeds 

 are very small, but from their enormous number 

 are easy to collect. To the best of my recollection 

 I never bought but a single packet of this seed, 

 getting enough to cover the bottom of a thimble 

 at a cost of ten cents. From this package of seed 

 all of my plants have descended, and with con- 

 stant improvement in the strain, beginning at 

 a height of three or four feet, they now reach 

 seven or eight feet, and it seems to me that the 

 flowers themselves have increased both in size and 

 in number. This flower is interesting from the 



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