Nature Bulletin No. 564-A   April 26, 1975
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:THE FIGWORT FAMILY

The Figwort Family, also known as the Foxglove Family, includes 
many plants with such strikingly different flowers or such different 
habits of growth that they scarcely seem to be relatives. The weirdly 
shaped blossoms of several kinds suggest, if you are fanciful, the faces 
of animals: some with fearsome open jaws, others with gaping flabby 
lips or bulging throats. Hence, among them, there are plants with such 
colorful names as Snapdragon, Turtlehead, Monkey Flower, Little 
Elephants, Owl's Clover and Pelican Flower.

The Figwort, from which the family gets not only a common name but 
also its scientific name, is a woodland plant with inconspicuous flowers 
that was once supposed to possess a cure for scrofula. Most members of 
this family have bitter juice; and several do have medicinal, narcotic or 
poisonous properties.

The large oval leaves of the cultivated Foxglove yield digitalis, most 
valuable of heart medicines because it is better than any other for 
stimulating the action of heart muscles in cases of partial heart failure. 
It has attractive racemes of many tubular flowers, from white to red or 
purple in color.

Approximately 3000 species of this family are known. About 40 are 
native to the Chicago region and 10, introduced from foreign countries, 
have gone wild and become naturalized. The largest of these is Mullein, 
so common and conspicuous in pastures, waste places, and along 
roadsides. In its first summer, a seedling produces a rosette of large 
woolly grayish-green leaves which endure and hold their color 
throughout the following winter. In the second season it shoots up a 
stout leafy stalk, often as tall as a man. The topmost foot or two is 
packed with hundreds of buds which, after midsummer and 
progressively upward from the bottom, open into small yellow flowers. 
Each is followed by a capsule with an abundance of tiny seeds often 
eaten by goldfinches.

Mullein has about 40 folk names such as Aaron's Rod, Peter's Staff, 
Royal Candle and Flannel Leaf or Velvet Plant. The felt on its leaves 
feels soft to the fingers but it is made up of fine prickly hairs which, if 
rubbed on your cheek, may make it burn for hours. Farm boys used to 
dry and smoke them. Our Bulletin No. 466 -- A relates other interesting 
facts about mullein.

Our great grandmothers used to plant a European Figwort called Butter-
and-Eggs, or Toadflax, in their gardens because it bears a tall spike of 
rich yellow and orange flowers. It soon escaped, became a weed, and 
now grows wild in waste places and sandy soils from coast to coast. 
Snapdragon, Kenilworth Ivy, Speedwell and Foxglove are Figworts 
cultivated in gardens or indoors.

False Foxglove is a late-blooming native woodland plant with lacy fern-
like leaves and five-petalled lemon-yellow flowers that are tubular and 
shaped like a bell. It seems to be partial to oaks and may be a parasite 
that gets part of its food from the roots of those trees.

Indian Paint Brush or Painted Cup is another Figwort and an oddity of 
our original prairies. What appears to be the bloom is really the vividly 
colored tips of leaves directly under the blossom -- usually scarlet or 
vermilion but sometimes orange or yellow. It, too, is thought to be 
partially parasitic on the roots of other plants. A western species is the 
state flower of Wyoming.

In our Cook County parade of spring wildflowers is the delicate Blue-
eyed Mary, a Figwort sometimes abundant in moist woodlands. Each 
blossom has a white upper lip and a blue lower lip.

We have not been able to find the reason for the name, Figwort.