This section is from the book "A Guide To The Wild Flowers", by Alice Lounsberry. Also available from Amazon: A Guide to the Wild Flowers.
Figwort.
Yellow.
Scentless.
New England to Minnesota southward to Florida.
August, September.
Flowers: large; growing in a leafy raceme. Calyx: short; campanulate, with five lobes. Corolla: large; with five spreading lobes extending into a long tube, the inside of which is woolly. Stamens: four, in pairs, one pair shorter than the other; woolly. Pistil: one. Leaves: opposite; the lower ones finely divided, the upper ones lanceolate; entire. Stem: from three to six feet high; branching; smooth. Root: parasitic.
The flgworts are one of the few families that remain with us after the composites have arrived. It would seem as though they were loath to leave us without some reminder of the more delicate bloom of the spring and summer. In full bud the plants are especially beautiful. In fact, the large showy flowers have hardly the charm of the deeply-tinted enrolled buds which pique the interest with the expectancy of the blossom. Often we find the foxglove blooming in the woods when there is not another flower to be seen, and we therefore greet it with an added amount of pleasure.
D. flava, or downy false foxglove, Plate CXVIII, is perhaps a little earlier in coming into bloom. It is a smaller plant, very showy, and with beautiful bell-shaped flowers.
 
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