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Synopsis (FOXGLOVE The familiar name)

FOXGLOVE. The familiar name is explained in the essay. The botanical name. Digitalis means finger-stall or "glove," which may appear to give propriety to the popular name. N.O., Scrophulariaceoe, or Figworts. LINNAEAN: 14, Didynamia; 2, Angiospermia.--In this large and important order are many curious and beautiful plants, not a few of them characterised by distinct toxic qualities. The foxglove, snapdragon, calceolaria, mullein, mimulus, and veronica are perhaps the best known amongst many, but more for their beauty as garden flowers than for their medical uses, although digitalis is a plant of considerable importance in modern medicine. They are mostly to be classed under herbs and shrubs, but the noble pawlonia is an example of the trees of the order, and the buddlea is intermediate between the trees and the shrubs. The catalpa is sometimes classed with the figworts, but its proper place is with the bignoniads. Another plant often associated in this group is the gloxinia, but this is a member of the gesnerworts, and therefore it is scarcely allowable to speak of the foxglove--as it is sometimes spoken of-as the "British gloxinia." The common foxglove is the best plant of its genus; other species of digitalis must rank below it, but a few of the number are interesting, more especially Digitalis aurea, the yellow flowering foxglove, a native of Greece.