the.com/foxglove
so beautiful it'll stop your heart, literally.
means A tall garden plant with tubular, bell-shaped flowers — usually purple or pink — that's strikingly pretty and dangerously poisonous, the source of the heart drug digitalis.
from From Old English 'foxes glofa,' literally 'fox's glove' — the blossoms do look like fingers of a glove a fox might slip on. There's a folk story that fairies gave the flowers to foxes to wear so they'd raid henhouses silently, and another that 'fox' is a worn-down 'folks,' meaning the fairy folk themselves — but the plain glove sense is the safest reading. The Latin name Digitalis comes from 'digitus,' finger, for the same glove-finger shape.
- heart drug
- Source of digitalis, used to treat heart failure
- deadly dose
- All parts toxic; few leaves can kill
- thimble shape
- Latin Digitalis means finger of a glove
- bee landing pad
- Spotted throats guide bees to nectar
- folklore name
- Once called fairy gloves and dead-men's-bells
digitalis purpurea — common foxglove species native to western and southwestern europe, contains cardiac glycosides used in heart medication
digitalis lanata — woolly foxglove native to southeastern europe and western asia, primary source of digoxin for cardiac drugs