I can’t decide if this foxglove flower is an example of ‘fascination’ or ‘peloria’. I read that peloric flowers usually the occur at the top of the stem on foxgloves rather than halfway down, and they are usually symmetrical all the way around. Whereas this one is spotty on the bottom of the interior and plain on the top. On the other hand though it doesn’t look like any of the fascinated double flowers I’ve seen on the internet. Anyone have any ideas?
It is reminiscent of the flowers on the strawberry foxglove, Digitalis mertonensis, they have a much wider flower. Where the terminal flower on a foxglove opens out into a radially symmetrical flower, instead of a bilateral symmetrical flower, that is peloric. It is due to a spontaneous mutation. A google image search on peloric foxgloves brings up a load of flowers that look like they have come out of the little shop of horrors. On balance I would go for the fasciation, the growing point of the individual flower bud being physically damaged by something like an aphid.
Thanks, yes it’s not quite as big and open as a typical peloric flower but it’s definitely different from the other flowers on the plant. It has 5 spotty lobes on the bottom whereas the others have 1 by the look of it. Also it has more anthers and stamens inside than the other flowers (this aspect of it definitely looks like a peloric foxglove). Interestingly there seems to be another bloom on the same stem that looks like it’ll be the same when it opens fully. Pelorism can be inherited so I’ll try to gather some seeds to see what happens!
Update on the mutant foxglove - here are two blooms behind the massive one which on closer inspection also have more spotty lobes at the bottom than the rest of the flowers. Second photo is of a ‘normal’ bloom on the same stem. You can see it only has one main spotty lobe. The rest of the flowers are like that.
Could this be part of the same fascination or is it genetic? I’ll still collect seeds and try growing them to see if anything weird shows up next year.
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Could this be part of the same fascination or is it genetic? I’ll still collect seeds and try growing them to see if anything weird shows up next year.
Fasciated stem on agapanthus