Fairy Foxglove with John Feehan, Wildflowers of Offaly series

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:04]60 years ago, you won't have had to look very hard to find fairy foxglove in this part of the Midlands.

[00:00:10]But in recent decades, it has been quietly extending its range, usually onto crevices of old walls, old limestone walls particularly, or cracks in the pavement.

[00:00:23]Um It comes to us originally from mountains on either side of the Mediterranean, places like the Pyrenees and the Alps.

[00:00:32]After which, in fact, its scientific Latin name comes. When Linnaeus named the plant in the early 18th century, he called it Erinus alpinus.

[00:00:43]The English name fairy foxglove suggests that it's related to our familiar foxglove. And in fact, it was placed in the same family by Linnaeus back in the 18th century. Uh but in more recent decades, uh in fact, in the last couple of years, really, it has been moved to the plantain family, unlikely as that appears, because it looks so different at first sight. But apparently, more recent genetic studies suggest that that that is where their nearest relations lie.

[00:01:31]The five strap-like sepals persist after fertilization as a sheltering enclosure around the developing fruits, which catapult themselves into adjacent crevices when they are ripe, covering an entire wall in no time at all.

[00:01:46]And once established, it can spread very quickly.

[00:01:50]The flowers on this wall were planted from a small handful of seeds brought from the Burren in 1990.

[00:01:57]The pictures were taken just 25 years later.

[00:02:02]The purple-pink corolla is a narrow, deep tube that flares out at the top into a five-rayed saucer.

[00:02:09]A lower petal, held at an angle to provide a landing platform for small butterflies, with two wing petals at the side and two smaller upper petals.

[00:02:25]The entrance to the nectar tube is blocked by hairs, and there are dark furrows running down the middle of the petals, which act as nectar guides.

[00:02:35]The two pairs of stamens are attached to the corolla tube below the collar of hairs, and just below the anthers, the upper free part of the filament turns inward at right angles, bringing the anthers into the center of the corolla tube, where they dehisce in such a way as to sprinkle the proboscis of a probing butterfly with pollen.

[00:02:58]Fairy foxglove is now regularly self-pollinated here in Ireland.

[00:03:02]It's gorgeous pink blossoms superfluous for any except our admiring eyes.

[00:03:09]But it's a haunting thought to think that having spent all those millions of years honing its ecological skills to attract small butterflies, uh small butterflies for which its flowers are specifically designed, that it can adapt itself to an environment that is so different, where it must await the arrival of small butterflies forever in vain.