Foxglove is another European interloper, but she's a beauty and I'm glad she made the journey to the Inland Northwest. This one was growing along the side of the road and creek, just outside of Mt. Spokane State Park. It gets the name digitalis because of the ease with which the flowers fit over our fingers/digits. It is poisonous so don't feed it to the kids, (cardiac glycoside digitoxin) but ironically it's extracts are used medicinally to treat heart failure.
Go here for a Washington-centric take on the Foxglove from the wonderful Burke Museum of Natural History site at the University of Washington. One interesting discovery is that many of the flowers I am discovering are not supposed to be where I am finding them. For example, the Burke map indicates that that foxglove is not known to occur in Spokane County. It's possible it was simply introduced (there was a house nearby), but there are many others whose location is inexplicable. My guess is that part of the gap is that less leg work has been done on the east side of the state to ID and specify the location of certain wildflowers. Note on the map that almost every West side county is highlighted while only Whitman County is highlighted for the east side. Is it possible that the presence of WSU in Whitman County has resulted in this? I'm new to the native plant community in Eastern Washington but I'm looking forward to seeing how our adventures might provide some data points for more accurate information on East side wildflowers.
