FOXGLOVES DIGITALIS

 FOXGLOVES DIGITALIS ... The flowers are produced on a tall spike, are tubular, and vary in colour with species, from purple to pink, white, and yellow. The best-known species is the "Common Foxglove", Digitalis purpurea. This genus is native to western and south western Europe, western and central Asia, and northwestern Africa. The scientific name means "finger-like" and refers to the ease with which a flower of Digitalis purpurea can be fitted over a human fingertip.This is a biennial plant which is often grown as an ornamental plant due to its vivid flowers. These range in colour from various purple tints through various shades of light gray, and to purely white. The flowers can also possess various marks and spottings.  

One of the loveliest, most important plant species that has been introduced from Europe and naturalized in various parts of North America.  The  flowers are numerous, on a spike, and range from a deep purple to lilac with conspicuous spots interlining the throat of the tubular flower. As a biennial, the leaves form a rosette the first year followed by the flower spike the next year. Prefers a nitrogen-rich sandy loam soil, in partial sun to full shade.
The first year of growth of the Common Foxglove produces only the stem with its long, basal leaves. During the second year of the plant's life, a long leafy stem from 50 to 255 centimeters tall grows atop the roots of healthy plants.
Depending on the species, the digitalis plant may contain several deadly physiological and chemically related cardiac and steroidal glycosides. Thus, the digitalis has earned several more sinister names: Dead Man’s Bells, and Witches’ Gloves. The entire plant is toxic (including the roots and seeds), although the leaves of the upper stem are particularly potent, with just a nibble, being enough to potentially cause death. Early symptoms of ingestion include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, wild hallucinations, delirium, and severe headache. Depending on the severity of the toxicities  the victim may later suffer irregular and slow pulse, tremors, various cerebral disturbances, especially of a visual nature (unusual colour visions with objects appearing yellowish to green, and blue halos around lights), convulsions, and deadly disturbances of the heart. The foxglove plant has been used for centuries to make digitalis and digoxin to help people with heart failure and heart irregularities.

Digoxigenin  (DIG) is a steroid found exclusively in the flowers and leaves of the plants Digitalis purpurea and Digitalis lanata. It is used as a molecular probe to detect DNA or RNA. It can easily be attached to nucleotides by chemical modifications. DIG molecules are often linked to uridine nucleotides; DIG labeled uridine (DIG-U) can then be incorporated into RNA probes via in vitro transcription. Once hybridisation occurs in situ, RNA probes with the incorporated DIG-U can be detected with anti-DIG antibodies that are conjugated to alkaline phosphatase. To reveal the hybridised transcripts, alkaline phosphatase can be reacted with a chromogen to produce a color precipitate.