Today's Nature Post features Foxglove.

Foxglove, otherwise known as Digitalis, is a genus of plants including perennials, biennials, shrubs, and herbs. Foxglove plants are native to areas including Western and central Asia, Northwestern Africa, and Western and Southwestern Europe. It has a preference for acidic soils in open woods, moorlands, mountain slopes, sea-cliffs, and heath landscapes. Often, Foxglove can be found growing in recently cleared areas such as after a wildfire. The Latin name Digitalis Purpurea, the most well-known species of Foxglove, translates to 'finger-like' and originates from the way the tube-life flower blossoms can fit over one's fingertip. Although, it is important to note that Foxglove is toxic and will cause Digitalis Toxicity, also known as Digitalis Intoxication, and can cause vomiting, diarrhea, abnormal heart rate, cardiac arrhythmia, seizures, and even death. The entire plant is toxic including the roots and seeds which has earned it additional names such as witch's gloves and dead man's bells. The upper stem of the plant is particularly poisonous. However, medicines have also been derived from the Foxglove plants. Medicines called Digitalin cultivated from Foxglove are used to treat heart conditions. The use of extracts from the Purpurea species was considered the beginning of modern therapeutics in 1785. This medicine is used to increase cardiac contractions or in order to control the heart rate in cases such as patients with congestive heart failure. Foxglove can range in size from three feet tall to up to six feet tall depending on the variety and blooms in a wide range of colors including white, purple, yellow, and pink.

Foxglove, also known as Fairy Fingers, Our Lady's Glove, Witch's Thimble, and Foxes Glofa, is associated as being a feminine plant connected with water and the powers of protection. It will protect a home when grown in the garden. In Wales, housewives would create a black dye out of the leaves with which they would paint crossed lines on their homes floors in order to keep evil from entering the house. Due to it's beauty and toxic quality, Foxglove is seen as a plant that can both heal and hurt. It is said that picking a Foxglove will offend fairies and that it's name also comes from the thought that foxes would wear the blossoms on their feet to keep them silent as they hunted. Scandinavian folklore says that fairies would teach the foxes how to ring the foxglove blossoms like bells to warn of hunters on the approach. In Roman folklore, Flora revealed to Hera how to impregnate herself by touching foxglove to her belly and chest so that she did not need a male. Planting foxglove is said to attract fairies while collecting juice or dew from the plant can be used to communicate with the fairy realm. The leaves are said to break fairy enchantments. Also connected with the Goddess Venus, Foxglove is associated with fertility and romance. Italian folklore holds Foxglove as able to open the user to strong waves of love. It's connection with fertility comes also from it's abundance of seeds and the great amount of Digitalis found within each seed.