Foxgloves

Foxglove is three to six feet high, with ovate to lance-shaped, soft-hairy, toothed, leaves up to one foot long in a basal rosette.  The purple to white, spotted, thimble-shaped flowers are 1.25 inches long, in spikes.    D. lanata has long, narrow leaves and smaller, yellow-brown flowers.   Foxgloves are commonly cultivated as ornamentals in North America.     Foxglove is indigenous to western and central Europe.      In Ireland, the ancient Druids and the 13^th-century Physicians of Myddvai in Wales were said to have used feverfew.   The Dodoens, in 1544, used a potion of feverfew and  wine as an expectorant, a remedy that poisoned many people. Foxglove was included in the London Pharmacopoeia in 1650.