Thursday, April 11, 2013

Botany picture #55: Digitalis parviflora


Digitalis parviflora (Scrophulariaceae), Germany, 2008. Another plant that I had established in the garden of my parents, although unfortunately it did not prove to be very resilient. The foxglove genus Digitalis is one of the few groups left in the Scrophulariaceae after they were disintegrated based on phylogenetic studies showing them to be, in their traditional circumscription, a wastebasket family. Most species of Digitalis have considerably larger flowers than this one, and strikingly pink to white D. purpurea is of course a well known ornamental. But this small species with its unusual brown, presumably wasp-pollinated flowers is attractive in its own way.

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