Foxgloves
Toxic beauty. (The Bus 5.13)
Welcome aboard The Bus!
The Stop
Native to Europe, Western Asia, and north western Africa, ‘foxglove’ is the common name for the members of Digitalis - a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennial plants, shrubs, and biennials. The plants produce a tall spike which is capped by a one-sided cluster of bell-shaped, tubular flowers which range in colour from various tints of purple and pink to purely white and yellow. A striking, hardy plant which flowers from May to September, foxgloves are cultivated as a popular ornamental garden plant. An important source of pollen for bees, all parts of the plant are toxic and can - in some cases - cause death by cardiac arrest if ingested.1
Growing to a height anywhere between 45 to 150 cm (18 to 60 inches), the most familiar species of the plant is Digitalis purpurea, the ‘common foxglove’. A biennial that flowers its second year and dies after seeding, these foxgloves have been popular in gardens for centuries, though there is little known about the origins of the name. The word can be traced to the Anglo-Saxons, where it is recorded in Old English as ‘foxes glofe/glofa', and most linguists believe the ‘glove’ part of the name is simply based on the flowers’ similarity to glove fingers. However, the source of the ‘fox’ portion of the name is ‘less certain’. One theory is that people believed foxes would wear the flowers on their paws to ‘silence their movements’ while they hunted prey, though this folk myth has likely ‘obscured the literal origins of the name.’ Another explanation is that the flowers became so named because they covered the hillsides where foxes would make their dens and raise their young. Some of the more ‘menacing names’ - witches’ glove, goblin gloves and dead men's bells - reference the toxicity of the plant.
Foxglove has been recognised as a herbal medicine for centuries. In 1652, the English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer Nicholas Culpeper included foxglove in his herbal medicine guide, The English Physician, citing its usefulness in healing wounds, scrofula, epilepsy and ‘scabby head[s]’. There is no evidence for the accuracy of any of Culpeper’s claims, though by 1785 extracts from the plant were being used to regulate the human heartbeat. Today, digitalin - extracted from foxglove plants - is used to control the heart rate, especially for patients diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
The entirety of the foxglove plant - including roots and seeds - is toxic,2 and consumption can produce wide-ranging gastrointestinal (appetite loss, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea), cardiac (raising and lowering the heart rate) and neurological (fatigue and delirium) effects. While death from consuming the plant is rare, it does happen. Most of the time these events involve young children drinking water from a vase containing the plants or - in other instances - when people have confused foxglove with the comfrey plant and brewed it into a deadly tea.
The Detour
Today’s Detour is to I Made a Photo Book about NYC's Original Artist Lofts, a short (4:04) documentary about the last generation of artists still living and working in Manhattan's SoHo neighbourhood. The filmmaker visits some lovely spaces and there are some brilliant works on display - all set to a great jazz soundtrack. I’ve never wanted an artist’s loft so badly. Worth the four minutes.
The Recommendation
Today’s Recommendation is Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber’s When They Severed Earth From Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth (2004). This book came to mind when I read about how folk tales surrounding foxgloves obscured the origin of the plant’s name. It’s a fascinating, in-depth study into the sources of myth - sources long lost in the stories created to communicate them.
From the back: Why were Prometheus and Loki envisioned as chained to rocks? What was the Golden Calf? Why are mirrors believed to carry bad luck? How could anyone think that mortals like Perseus, Beowulf, and St George actually fought dragons, since dragons don’t exist? Strange though they sound, these ‘myths’ did not begin as fiction.
This absorbing book shows that myths originally transmitted real information about real events and observations, preserving the information sometimes for millennia within non-literate societies.
Recent studies of how our brains work, applied to a wide range of data from the Pacific Northwest to ancient Egypt to modern stories reported in newspapers, have helped the Barbers deduce the characteristic principles by which such tales both develop and degrade through time.
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is a selection of five brilliant tracks3 that are completely unrelated to the Stop: ‘Mambo Sun’ (T. Rex, 1971), ‘Walkin’ Back to Georgia’ (Jim Croce, 1972), ‘Ambulance Blues’ (Neil Young, 1974), ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’ (Richard & Linda Thompson, 1974) and ‘Strange Powers’ (Magnetic Fields, 1994). Enjoy!
The Thought
Today’s Thought is from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This is from Act II Scene iii (23-26), when we are first introduced to Friar Lawrence who is carrying a basket of herbs and flowers and discussing how appearance is misleading. He picks up a flower and notes how in the same plant there is both poison and medicine: smelt, it invigorates; tasted, it kills.4 Entirely fitting for today’s Stop on foxgloves:
‘Within the infant rind of this weak flower/Poison hath residence and medicine power;/For this being smelt with that part cheers each part;/Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.’
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
And that’s the end of this Stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!
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Until the next Stop …
Sources for today’s Stop include Woodland Trust, Almanac, Foxglove (Britannica) and Digitalis (Wikipedia)
The plant is also toxic to animals, including livestock, poultry, cats and dogs.
Seriously. Very, very few Bus Riders click the link to my playlists - which is a shame, as there’s a lot of thought put into them. Nevertheless, I’m particularly pleased with this one - for the Jim Croce track alone. Give that track a listen and give me a reason it’s not sublime.
It’s also a commentary on the dual sides of human nature, etc. of course.
The write up on the Foxglove and your book review were both intriguing.
Our foxgloves are in full bloom now. I’ll be careful not to ingest any though. And thanks for a great playlist 😊