The TOOHG RATtfRAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 57. AUGUST, 1884. Vol. 5. 



THE FOXGLOVE 



(Digitalis purpurea). 



By j, P. Soutter, Bishop Auckland. 



" Boon nature scattered free and wild 

 Each plant or flower, the mountain's child : 

 Here eglantine embalmed 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, 

 Grouped their dark hues with every stain 

 The weather-beaten crags retain ; 

 With boughs that quaked at every breath, 

 Grey birch and aspen wept beneath ; 

 Aloft the ash and warrior oak 

 Cast anchor in the rifted rock ; 

 And higher yet the pine-tree hung 

 His shatter'd trunk, and frequent flung, 

 Where seemed the clifls to meet on high, 

 His boughs athwart the narrowed sky." 



IN the sultry summer sunshine, as 

 the weary pedestrian plods along 

 the dusty country highway, or branches 

 off into the less frequented rural lane, 

 or, tempted by the shade, he diverges 

 into the woodland path. Whether he 

 rambles across the open, breezy moor- 

 land, or meanders through the mazy 

 thickets of the bushy common, there 

 is scarcely a bank or hedgerow but he 

 will be sure to find the stately stems 



and gracefully drooping purple bells 

 of the foxglove, pre-eminently the 

 handsomest of our herbaceous native 

 flowers. If our wanderer be poetically 

 inclined, he may rest by the roadside 

 and fancifully dream that he listens to 

 fairy music in the tintinnabulations of 

 its mimic bells as they dance and jingle 

 to the soft breathings of the passing 

 breeze; or he may more prosaically 

 pass the hours in lazily watching the 

 industrious humble-bees with their 

 soothing hum as they untiriugly flit 

 from flower to flower, sipping the nec- 

 tar and rifling the spangled storehouse 

 of its luscious sweets. 



Although so well known as to re- 

 quire no description, the foxglove is a 

 most interesting plant, not only for 

 the popular beauty and peculiar struc- 

 ture of its blossoms, but also for its 

 highly important medicinal properties. 

 Common and abundant as it is, there 

 is yet a conflict of opinion amongst 

 authorities on such an apparently sim- 

 ple matter as the duration of its exis- 

 tence, several manuals putting it down 

 as a perennial, whilst others class it as 

 a biennial. My own observation leads 

 me to adopt this latter view, and its 



