Foxgloves

Look out for foxgloves – tall stately graceful purple flowers with petals fused into a tube with two lips and dark polka dots fringed with white that guide long-tongued carder bumble bees in for nectar. Enormous spikes contain drooping bell flowers and fruits at every stage of development. Wind dispersed tiny seed remain viable for years in soil, from where plants appear when exposed to light if ground is disturbed. Foxglove is a biennial, spending the first winter as conspicuous rosettes of downy, felted leaves. It needs cold weather for vernalisation to produce tall stout unbranched stems and flowers in their second year. Foxglove is part of our native Irish biodiversity.

Foxglove habitat