While surveying his garden this morning the skeptical cardiologist felt the cockles of his heart warm when he viewed the budding plant below:
The plant I beheld was the glorious, mystical and medicinal foxglove or digitalis purpurea upon which I have waxed poetic innumerable times (see here and here and here.)
It is from the foxglove that William Withering made his potions to treat dropsy (the ancient term for heart failure) and since writing about my encounter with the foxglove in Wales I’ve been on a quest to get some in my garden.
This mission was accomplished when Quiet Village Landscaping installed the plants a month ago.
Now if I can keep them growing I’ll be able to enjoy the tall, showy spikes of tubular pink or purple flowers with speckled throats that should emerge in summer.
Foxglove and its medicinal derivative digitalis can be toxic to both humans and animals. Let’s hope that the five bunnies that were frolicking in my yard and eating my hosta earlier in the spring have the good sense to eschew chewing it.
My first encounter with foxglove is entitled “Withering Away in Wales” and I’ve copied it below.
The skeptical cardiologist was born in Wrexham, North Wales, not too far from the northern area in Wales known as Snowdonia, the ancestral lands of the great Princes of Wales.
I’ve been back to this wonderful area several times in the last dozen years, entranced by its beauty and connection with my ancestor, Prince Llewelyn the Great.
Most recently I stayed in Beddgelert, a small village nestled at the base of Mount Snowdon, which , according to (possibly tourism-inspired) legend, is named after the grave of Gelert, the faithful hound of Prince Llewelyn.
A brief hike along the gurgling Glaslyn river takes you to a stone monument with these words inscribed:
Two Pearson children show their appreciation of Gelert’s heroic behavior. Note the purplish flower on the long green stalk in the background, next to the stone wall-FOXGLOVE!
“In the 13th century Llewelyn, prince of North Wales, had a palace at Beddgelert. One day he went hunting without Gelert, ‘The Faithful Hound’, who was unaccountably absent. On Llewelyn’s return the truant, stained and smeared with blood, joyfully sprang to meet his master. The prince alarmed hastened to find his son, and saw the infant’s cot empty, the bedclothes and floor covered with blood. The frantic father plunged his sword into the hound’s side, thinking it had killed his heir. The dog’s dying yell was answered by a child’s cry. Llewelyn searched and discovered his boy unharmed, but nearby lay the body of a mighty wolf which Gelert had slain.
The prince filled with remorse is said never to have smiled again. He buried Gelert here”.
While lingering in the little stone wall enclosure within which a statue of the faithful Gelert stood I espied a plant that looked like digitalis purpurea, more commonly known as foxglove.
Moving closer, I realized that I had indeed come face to face with a wildly growing foxglove, the plant that William Withering had utilized to treat patients with dropsy in the late -1700s.
I was understandably ecstatic as I was on a sort of mission to observe foxglove in its native environs. I had expected to view the medicinal plant in Shropshire where William Withering was born and where he had encountered “the old woman of Shropshire” who first inspired him to use foxglove for dropsy.
This unexpected foxglove experience seemed like a serendipitous harbinger of wonderful Witheringesque experiences to come.
Sure enough as we left the fog-enshrouded mountains of Snowdonia and drove on the left side of narrow, winding Welsh roads toward Shropshire we spotted multiple large patches of wildly growing foxglove in a nearby meadow.
Although my children were eager to taste the foxglove and see if the inotropic properties of the digitalis within would make their hearts beat stronger and make them more powerful, I restrained them, for Withering’s writings and subsequent years of clinical experience with digitalis tell us that the therapeutic window is narrow and toxicity manifested by nausea and vomiting common.
Many readers have asked what the skeptical cardiologist thinks about a unique and interesting addition to the personal cardiovascular monitoring space that offers long-term ECG
Janet, Strophanthus is definitely of historical interest but please don’t take those supplements. In my post “foxglove equipoise” I talk about how we have spent over 300 years studying foxglove and its active chemical digitalis. “Foxglove was in clinical equipoise in 1775. When Withering started giving it to his patients with dropsy he did not know if it would help or harm them. After trying various preparations of the foxglove in varying dosages in hundreds of patients he concluded that it was of a great benefit as long as it was carefully titrated to avoid the toxicities of overly slow pulse and vomiting. With modern medicines that are proven to be safe and effective we demand evidence from randomized controlled trials in which the active drug is compared to a placebo. There are too many factors which affect the course of a disease to accept the kind of observational evidence that Withering collected” Strophanthus as a helpful medicinal currently is where foxglove was in 1775. Much more likely to do harm than good.
Never fear, the exceedingly bitter taste is self-limiting, even at ‘Homeopathic’ concentrations ! And the co$t. More effective is to maintain supportive family and societal relationships that nourish the “heart”. Seems the active ingredient – or one like it – is naturally produced https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13494616_Is_Ouabain_Produced_by_the_Adrenal_Gland
Common foxglove is a biennial, which means that Quiet Village probably grew it from seed and and sold it to you ready to flower in its second year. They generally flower and then die, leaving seeds that will become seedlings to grow in situ the following year and then bloom the year after. Be sure your soil is ready to nurture those seeds. T’would be best for the Village to come back with more bloomers next year. Otherwise you’d have bloom only every other year for a while. https://www.therecord.com/living-story/6383898-foxglove-is-a-lovely-but-short-lived-biennial/
While lingering in the little stone wall enclosure within which a statue of the faithful Gelert stood I espied a plant that looked like digitalis purpurea, more commonly known as foxglove.
Although my children were eager to taste the foxglove and see if the inotropic properties of the digitalis within would make their hearts beat stronger and make them more powerful, I restrained them, for Withering’s writings and subsequent years of clinical experience with digitalis tell us that the therapeutic window is narrow and toxicity manifested by nausea and vomiting common.
6 thoughts on “Foxglove Is Growing In My Garden: Bunnies Beware!”
A fascinating and beautifully written piece! I could foresee a book of your collected essays….?
Since we’re looking back in Time, this particular plant should be of Historical interest, ‘Strophanthus hispidus’ and I understand standardized preparation is available from more than one supplier.
https://rootoflife.co/shop/heart-health/diamond-heart/
and
https://www.henriettes-herb.com/eclectic/felter/strophanthus.html
Janet,
Strophanthus is definitely of historical interest but please don’t take those supplements. In my post “foxglove equipoise” I talk about how we have spent over 300 years studying foxglove and its active chemical digitalis.
“Foxglove was in clinical equipoise in 1775. When Withering started giving it to his patients with dropsy he did not know if it would help or harm them.
After trying various preparations of the foxglove in varying dosages in hundreds of patients he concluded that it was of a great benefit as long as it was carefully titrated to avoid the toxicities of overly slow pulse and vomiting.
With modern medicines that are proven to be safe and effective we demand evidence from randomized controlled trials in which the active drug is compared to a placebo. There are too many factors which affect the course of a disease to accept the kind of observational evidence that Withering collected”
Strophanthus as a helpful medicinal currently is where foxglove was in 1775. Much more likely to do harm than good.
Never fear, the exceedingly bitter taste is self-limiting, even at ‘Homeopathic’ concentrations ! And the co$t. More effective is to maintain supportive family and societal relationships that nourish the “heart”.
Seems the active ingredient – or one like it – is naturally produced
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13494616_Is_Ouabain_Produced_by_the_Adrenal_Gland
Common foxglove is a biennial, which means that Quiet Village probably grew it from seed and and sold it to you ready to flower in its second year. They generally flower and then die, leaving seeds that will become seedlings to grow in situ the following year and then bloom the year after. Be sure your soil is ready to nurture those seeds. T’would be best for the Village to come back with more bloomers next year. Otherwise you’d have bloom only every other year for a while.
https://www.therecord.com/living-story/6383898-foxglove-is-a-lovely-but-short-lived-biennial/
this plant MUST bring joy and delight to a cardiologist’s heart. And “eschew chewing” – such fantastic wordsmithing!!
Have a grand day!