Is this a foxglove?

[bendog]

This has appeared in the garden and is only about a foot tall.

[Yaffle]

Originally Posted by bendog

This has appeared in the garden and is only about a foot tall.

Yes, it certainly is a Foxglove. You can see how it got it's common name as the flowers do look like a fox could slip it's paw in!

[oceanroc]

I concur. A foxglove it is. Although a rather pale version of the normal pink. I don't know why some individuals are pale but it is the same with other plants particularly blubells around where I live. And come to think of it I had a big discussion yesterday about whether a tree was a pink hawthorn, or a pink-flowered COMMON Hawthorn. I insisted on the latter due to the leaf shape, but the flowers on many hawthorn trees by the River Ebble were certainly very pink! And these were mature flowers, not just partly-opened ones.
I hope this isn't termed as 'hi-jacking' someone elses thread but can anyone tell me why we occasionally get white or miscolored flowers on some species of plants and trees?

[Paul mabbott]

Genetics and selection. There are (presumably) recessive genes for colours other than the 'normal' ones which occasionally pop out: red campion and herb robert, for instance, are normally pink flowered but not uncommonly they produce white flowers - a recessive gene showing up.
However, I suspect what we have in the cases here are human selections for mutant genes. Mutations occur which are very different from the ordinary and humans (seed merchants, 'plantsmen', whatever) select the oddities - in the case of hawthorn and other trees the mutation is kept going by cloning the tree - propagating it from cuttings rather than seed.
In the case of foxgloves and other garden plants, mutations ('sports') can be improved by selective breeding or by hybridisation: most garden flowers available as seeds have been produced this way. I suspect that if seeds of this foxglove were collected many of the plants derived from them would come back to the natural pink form.

Originally Posted by oceanroc

I concur. A foxglove it is. Although a rather pale version of the normal pink. I don't know why some individuals are pale but it is the same with other plants particularly blubells around where I live. And come to think of it I had a big discussion yesterday about whether a tree was a pink hawthorn, or a pink-flowered COMMON Hawthorn. I insisted on the latter due to the leaf shape, but the flowers on many hawthorn trees by the River Ebble were certainly very pink! And these were mature flowers, not just partly-opened ones.
I hope this isn't termed as 'hi-jacking' someone elses thread but can anyone tell me why we occasionally get white or miscolored flowers on some species of plants and trees?

[smartie]

There is quite a big "natural" colour variation in foxgloves from the most usual mauve through pinks to white. Paul is right that, like hellebores, which also hybridise very readily, they have been much manipulated by plant breeders to widen the colour range. And, also like hellebores, the more exotic colours will be lost over time if you allow them to seed themselves about without intervention - they will gradually revert to the originally dominant colour.

The seeds are very small and light and can travel quite a long distance. And in my experience they never turn up in the shady bed where I want them but always in the gravel paths or the grass...

[bendog]

This is another one of my "mystery as to how it got there" plants. I let things grow, decide if I like them when and if they flower, and I like this one, although it seems much smaller than I expected a foxglove to be. I will, however, try to collect some seeds and see what happens next year.

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by bendog

This is another one of my "mystery as to how it got there" plants. I let things grow, decide if I like them when and if they flower, and I like this one, although it seems much smaller than I expected a foxglove to be. I will, however, try to collect some seeds and see what happens next year.

I do that - you at least get a good showing of things like forget-me-not but, occasionally very strange things turn up: I once grew a large candelabra Primula - waterside plant. Whatever you grow this way you know that it likes where it's growing, you're not battling against nature!

[thunder]

I think it probably isn't a wild Foxglove. Size and colour would suggest a garden escape.

henrya

[Yaffle]

Originally Posted by thunder

I think it probably isn't a wild Foxglove. Size and colour would suggest a garden escape.

henrya

Yeah, my first impression was that it was from a cultivated variety.

[Lance Morgan]

yes definetely a foxglove cultivar. My garden is full of them