Have you ever looked inside the gently drooping bell flowers of the foxglove?
The tall elegant spires of these regal pink and magenta flowers tower over everything else in my garden. I have them growing among a colourful array of delphiniums and lupins as I seem to have a penchant for tall blooms, but the foxgloves are in a league of their own when it comes to bridging the gap between heaven and earth! Some of the stems reached two metres when they were at their zenith in spring.
This is the first time I’ve had the pleasure of their company. Being biennial flowers, there were only verdant rosettes of foliage in the first spring. I had to wait, impatiently I might add, until last November to watch the spires reach for the sky and the buds gradually open, one by one, beginning at the bottom of the stem and working their way up to the top! Strangely, the unopened young buds point up and outwards, like a young puppy full of energy, and as they mature and open, the blooms gently tilt downwards. All that is visible then of the inner flower is the tongue-like lower petal covered in dark magenta spots, poking out like the tongue of a child who has been caught telling lies!
My curiosity got the better of me, and I took to looking up inside the ripe blooms to discover what treasures they were hiding deep within. Well, it took my breath away! With the light behind them, the centre glowed bright green surrounded by a white halo, reflecting the colour of the sepals at the back of the flower that originally enclosed the bud. Two long stamens, the male reproductive parts, closely hugged the top of the five fused petals, and two snuck craftily around the sides, whilst the style with open stigma, the female reproductive part, wove itself neatly between the two upper stamens. It was like they had organised themselves to make perfect use of the confined space of the narrow bell shaped bloom.
The most amazing part of all was the tall white hairs standing like sentries just inside the opening of the lower petal. Plants have evolved to be incredible in their tricks and ruses to attract the right pollinators to ensure they reproduce themselves. The spots on the tongue act as a visual attraction to bees, their only pollinators, as the nectaries are not visible to them when they are flying along seeking food. The magenta spots continue deep inside as guides to the nectaries, but they must first be given an entry pass by the sentries whose job is to admit only bees. The space is so tight once they move beyond, that the bees must brush past the pollen laden anthers to get to their sweet snack, before carrying their load to other foxglove flowers for fertilization.
It’s not surprising that these lovely flowers have long been associated with fairies, variously being called fairy thimbles, fairy caps, fairy petticoats and fairy bells. It is believed their common name comes from ‘folks glove’, referring to the dainty little folk and the shape of the bloom resembling that of a finger. It’s easy to picture them donning the blossoms as gloves, thimbles and cute little caps, or wearing them as dainty petticoats whilst ringing other blooms as bells to catch the attention of their fellows.
I have no doubt that, unlike humans, the fairies have long had an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the blushing blooms on foxglove spires.