I don’t know if this is a thing but I would consider my aesthetic like dark cottage core. Too dark for normal cottage core but not quite dark academia. I would imagine the aesthetic would be like;
The sky right before/after a storm. The aura is somber and the clouds are grey, but not quite dark enough to block out the sun’s light completely.
Or like the dense part of the forest where the tree’s canopy covers the light trying to sneak through and you can hear the rapids of the nearby river.
It’s wearing a monochrome dress and sitting by a window. A cup of black tea in hand and reading pride and prejudice.
The towns folk walk past the cottage and they just know a witch lives there. The flowers grow wild and the backyard borders a large forest.
Im not sure if dark cottage core is a thing but gosh do I hope it becomes a trend.
(I don’t own any of these pictures!! They are just what I think the aesthetic would look like.)
DISCLAIMER: This post is for educational purposes only. You assume moral and legal responsibility if anyone gets hurt by a plant that you grow. Make sure that your garden is not accessible by anyone who is ignorant of the danger, especially children or animals.
Foxglove(Digitalis) is a genus of about twenty biennial (lives for two years) and perennial (lives for more than two years) herbaceous plants and shrubs. Common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) is the most common garden variety, with many cultivars to consider.
They can grow rather tall - up to two metres (six feet) for the common foxglove. The leaves are oval, hairy, with a toothed margin; they start out in a rosette, with alternating distribution on the stem.
Theflowering season is in early summer (late spring in warmer zones). The flowers themselves are dainty, beautiful, and deadly. They’re arranged in an elongated cluster, with each flower large enough to fit over a finger like a thimble (as you can guess by the name). They’re usually purple in colour, with the inside heavily spotted, but white, pink, or yellow cultivars also exist.
Peloric mutations, where a plant produces a flower with an abnormal number of petals and radial, star-like symmetry, are also very common in foxgloves.
A peloric D.purpurea flower.
Favoured conditions
Temperature range: Seeds germinate at soil temperature above 20C (70F). Foxgloves are hardy at zones 4-10 (look your region up on the hardiness zone map), but may wilt if it gets hotter than 30C (90F)
Light: From full sun to partial shade. Foxgloves are woodland flowers, so they can tolerate lack of sunlight.
Soil: Any texture (sand, clay, or silt), with rich (fertile) soil preferred. Some sources say they prefer acidic soil, others say neutral pH. Both are certainly acceptable.
Water: Keep the ground moist but not wet; soil needs to be well-draining. No air humidity requirements.
Growing tips
Foxgloves propagate by seed. Like any biennial, foxgloves flower in their second year, so be patient and make sure to plant seeds for two years in a row to make sure you get flower annually.
They’ll self-sustain if allowed to re-seed themself, so you can leave the plants alone. But you can also remove wilted flowers - this is called deadheading and promotes a second bloom - or you can harvest the seeds yourself.
After the first year, cut the plant down to the crown, and cover in mulch if living in a colder region. If the flower clusters get too large, or if there is harsh weather such as wind or hail, they may require staking.
Foxgloves can be grown in containers, just make sure to pick one that’s sufficiently big. All in all, this is a plant that doesn’t require much fussing over.
Toxicity
That’s what you’re here for, aren’t you? All right.
Digitalisspecies contain a number of cardiac glycosides, specifically, cardenolides. Digoxin and digitoxin are the most studied of those.
Pharmacology:
Cardenolides are toxic to mammals through inhibition of Na+/K+‐ATPase, also known as the sodium-potassium pump. The differing concentrations of ions outside and inside a cell are used to maintain resting potential (to put it in an overly simple way: difference in charge on the inside and the outside), which, in excitable cells such as cardiac muscle or nerve cells, is crucial to their proper functioning.
Digoxin interferes with the functioning of the Na⁺/K⁺ pump; this results in an increased Na⁺ concentration inside the cell. That, in turn, leads to an increase in Ca⁺⁺ ions (because of another ion pump). Ca⁺⁺ influences heart contractions: heart rate goes down, blood pressure goes up, stroke volume increases.
As you might imagine, there’s a number of things that can go wrong. Bradycardia (low heart rate) or arrhythmia can ensue, which can lead to a cardiac arrest. Hyperkalaemia (high K+ concentration) can induce arrhythmia, but so can hypokalaemia (low K+ concentration) - more K+-binding sites are open for digoxin, increasing the effective concentration of digoxin within the heart.
Every part of the plant is highly toxic. Symptoms are non-specific: nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, headache, increased respiration rate, excitation, drowsiness, dizziness, apathy, confusion, and delirium. Vision disturbances can also happen - a specific interesting symptom is xanthopsia, seeing the world tinted with yellow. And, of course, cardiac disturbances - irregular heartbeat, ventricular tachycardia, ventricular fibrillation, sinoatrial block and AV block. In short, the most likely cause of death from a foxglove poisoning is cardiac arrest following arrhythmia or V-fib.
Detection: Very trivial. Elevated K+ levels and a particular appearance of the EKG - both would lead to a blood test being conducted, which should reveal the presence of digoxin.
Happy Halloween.
This was going to be a post on several different plants, but foxglove alone proved far too long. I’m breaking it into a series, so watch this space for more.
