DIGITALIS PURPUREA— PURPLE FOXGLOVE, OR FOLKSGLOVE. 
Class XIY. DIDYNAMIA.— Order II. ANGIOSPERMIA. 
Natural Order, SCROPHULARINEAL — THE FIGWORT TRIBE. 
Foxglove, a corruption of Folksglove, an orthography which should be restored, may be considered not 
only as the most beautiful and conspicuous of our indigenous plants, but as one of the most valuable articles 
of the materia medica. It is equally remarkable for its stately growth, its elegant flowers, and its powerful 
effects on the animal economy. It is a biennial plant, growing abundantly in most parts of the island, 
particularly in the northern counties, on hedge-banks, and uncultivated places, delighting in a sandy or 
gravelly soil. We have found it, but in no great plenty, in most of the woods near London ; but Sir James 
E. Smith affirms that it rarely, if ever, occurs in Norfolk or Suffolk. It flowers in June and July. 
The name Digitalis, derived by Fuchsius, who first gave it to this plant, from digiiabulum, a thimble, 
has an evident reference to the finger-like flowers of the plant ; a similitude which has been recognized in 
almost every country in which it is found ; as may be seen by the names, Fingerbor, Fingerhut, Vingerhoed, 
Digital, &c., given to it by the Spaniards, the Dutch, the Germans, and the Swedes. Mr. Rootsey in a very 
interesting commentary on the medical plants mentioned by Shakespeare, communicated to the Medico- 
Botanical Society of London, expresses an opinion that this plant is the “long purples” of the poet, an 
opinion contrary to that generally entertained. He says, “ the names of Foxglove or Folksglove, Finger 
flower, or Digitalis, and dog’s fingers, as the plant is called in Wales, together with the magnificent spike of 
purple flowers borne by the digitalis purpurea, induce me to conjecture that it is alluded to by our illustrious 
poet as long purples. 
“ There is a willow grows ascant the brook I Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, 
That shews his hoar leaves in the glassy stream ; That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, 
There with fantastic garlands did she make, | But our cold maids do dead men' s fingers call them.” 
Hamlet, iv. 7. 
This question, however, still remains unsettled, for as the writer adds : — 
“The common blue-bells to which Salisbury attached the epithet festalis, might perhaps be thought to 
be the garland flowers of Ophelia ; but Lightfoot says, it is the orchis mascula ; though Martyn considers 
that the name of dead men’ s fingers would better apply to the palmated species.” 
Foxglove rises with a round, erect, downy, and generally undivided stem, to the height of three or four 
feet. The root is whitish, and consists of numerous long and slender fibres. The lower leaves are large, 
ovate-pointed, on short winged foot-stalks, and spreading upon the ground ; the cauline ones are alternate, 
or elliptic-oblong, somewhat decurrent ; and both kinds are downy, much wrinkled, crenate, and of a dull 
green colour on the upper surface, and paler underneath. The flowers are numerous, on short footstalks, 
drooping, of a bright reddish or purple colour, and terminate the stem in an elegant pyramidal spike. The 
calyx is divided into five acute segments ; the upper one narrower than the rest : the corrolla is bell-shaped, 
hairy, and spotted within, inflated on the lower side, and contracted at the base ; the upper lip is slightly 
emarginate, and smaller than the lower one. The filaments are awl-shaped, inserted into the base of the 
corolla, bent downwards, and supporting large, oval, deeply, cloven anthers ; the germen is ovate, pointed, 
having a simple style with a bifid stigma closed in the early stages, but opening as the flowers arrive at pu- 
berty. The capsule is ovate, acuminate, the length of the calyx, bilocular, with two valves, containing nu- 
merous small, oblong, brownish seeds. A variety with white flowers is cultivated in gardens, as an orna- 
mental plant. 
Although this plant is so elegant and stately in its appearance, it does not appear to have attracted the 
attention of the ancients. Fuchsius, in his Hist. Stirp. 1542, is the first author who notices it : and from 
him it received the name of Digitalis, in allusion to the German name of Fingerhut, which signifies a finger- 
stall, from the blossoms resembling the finger of a glove. All parts of the plant have at different times 
