Years ago, when riding through the woods, my husband caught sight of an unusual wildflower not known to us — the downy, false foxglove, Gerardia flare.
Transferring a plant or two to our own woodland seemed a simple matter. We noticed it was growing tinder oaks, so we chose the same location on our land, using plenty of oak leaf mold, which it seemed to prefer in its new home.
We were right in thinking it preferred oaks, but our plants died. Finally, we discovered why. The false foxglove, like its cousins, the guardians. It is a partial parasite.
It can live only by attaching itself by suckers to the roots of the white oak or the witch hazel.
A Variety Of Parasites
There is something unpleasant about a plant that is a parasite. Drawing its nourishment from other plants as it does, it almost seems to have criminal tendencies.
Fortunately, the false foxglove has yet to progress on this downward path in the vegetable kingdom and the spiritual. There are all degrees of backsliding.
The dodder vine lost leaves and roots after it consented to live entirely by theft. The Indian pipe’s ghostly air tells its story of guilt, and the beechdrops and broomrape have lost their natural green color.
False Foxglove’s Features
The false foxglove grows from 2’ to 4’ feet high, the flowers are pale yellow, and the corolla is funnel-shaped, growing in showy terminal racemes and blossoming in August in New England.
I hadn’t seen the plant for several years when one day driving into Boston through Dover, I recognized a plantation beside the road. How can we preserve a wildflower like the false foxglove? Its seeds seem its only hope, and that a slight one.
Someone may have seen it flourishing not so near a large city.
44659 by Ruth D. Grew