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Flummoxed by foxglove!!
* Red Dahlia *
Posts: 694
in Plants
My white perennial foxglove with red spots and one flowering spike last year..... Has turned completely pink, multiple flowering stems but... There are stamens or anthers sticking out each side of the flower. And the flower is split in half. What the heck?!? Any clues???
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In botany white is a recessive gene very often. In layman's terms it is a freak and the seed of the plant will usually return to the "type". If this is the common foxglove that color is pink. Are you sure it's not a seedling from the original plant which has died? Foxgloves are not long-lived and grow very fast. I can think of no other explanation.
Red Dahlia - can you post us a pic please
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I wish I could but I am an iPhone user but will add a link to twitter. It's meant to be perennial and it grew from the sme base just lots more flowering stems. I will post firstly...
the pink one that has returned as it was last year and meant to be perennial
then I will post the pink that's meant to be white that has funny funny flowers. Really I am lost.
Tracey
I had a foxglove last year with amazing variegated leaves - I contacted the RHS who said that if any of it's seedlings had the same leaves they'd be interested - so far the seedlings are all plain green, but if I remember correctly the original one didn't show variegation until it's second year, so I shall keep watching out.
I think that foxgloves are pretty susceptible to genetic blips. I had a couple of others last year that grew second flower spikes out of the top of the first ones - very odd.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
http://twitter.com/Inky_Trace/status/467910134916980736/photo/1
https://twitter.com/inky_trace/status/467910682651156480
Happy viewing but you can see that the flowers are split in half and there are stamens sticking out of each side. Rather gutted as my farther bought me them both as a gift. First picture looks amazing and this one just looks well weird!!!
There are varieties of foxglove which have been bred to have split flowers - Pam's Split is one, and there are others. I shall google ..................
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Hmmm, the only one I can find at the moment is Pam's Split
http://www.hayloft-plants.co.uk/Digitalis/Pam's-Split-1-young-plant/prod4324.html
and a very similar one, but I'm sure I've seen an orangey yellow one ..............
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.