A couple of weeks ago, I passed a few fine exemplars of Martagon lilies, which we’ve l
earned about before, whilst walking through the woods, and slowly as the weather waxes warmer and the ground soaks up all the spring rains, here’s hoping we stay we’ll irrigated to help the forest recover from some punishingly dry years, the lilies are being replaced by another pink perennial, the common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea).
Called Fingerhรผte (finger hat or thimble) in German, the flower was named by our botanist friend Leohart Fuchs (
see previously) building off the Latin designation with rather fearsome etymological battle surround the above Anglo-Saxon name, arguments back and forth on whether it's a perversion of some other name regarding its toxicity or supposed pharmacological merits since people couldn’t possibly believe that foxes wore such flowers a stockings to muffle their movements whilst hunting—could they? Stemming from folk medicine and herbalist, a compound isolated from the foxglove is used in cardiac therapies but is highly deadly for humans and other animals (like the lily up top) if touched or ingested.
Called Fingerhรผte (finger hat or thimble) in German, the flower was named by our botanist friend Leohart Fuchs (see previously) building off the Latin designation with rather fearsome etymological battle surround the above Anglo-Saxon name, arguments back and forth on whether it's a perversion of some other name regarding its toxicity or supposed pharmacological merits since people couldn’t possibly believe that foxes wore such flowers a stockings to muffle their movements whilst hunting—could they? Stemming from folk medicine and herbalist, a compound isolated from the foxglove is used in cardiac therapies but is highly deadly for humans and other animals (like the lily up top) if touched or ingested.
