''Digitalis davisiana'' is a species of

foxglove ''Digitalis'' ( or ) is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennial plants, shrubs, and biennials, commonly called foxgloves. ''Digitalis'' is native to Europe, Western Asia, and northwestern Africa. The flowers are tubular in sha ...

, a

herbaceous plant Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition o ...

in the genus ''

Digitalis ''Digitalis'' ( or ) is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennial plants, shrubs, and Biennial plant, biennials, commonly called foxgloves. ''Digitalis'' is native to Europe, Western Asia, and northwestern Africa. The flowers are ...

'' in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Plantaginaceae Plantaginaceae, the plantain family or veronica family, is a large, diverse family (biology), family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales that includes common flowers such as Antirrhinum, snapdragon and Digitalis, foxglove. It is unrelated ...

,The Plant List
/ref>Brickell, Christopher "The Royal Horticultural Society A-Z of Garden Plants (Volume 1: A-J)", 3rd ed. Copyright 2008 Dorling Kindersley Ltd., London. pp 377 formerly in the

Scrophulariaceae The Scrophulariaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the figwort family. The plants are annual and perennial herbs, as well as shrubs. Flowers have bilateral (zygomorphic) or rarely radial (actinomorphic) symmetry. The Scr ...

Huxley, Anthony; Griffiths, Mark; Levy, Margot "The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening (Volume 2, D-K)" 1st ed., copyright 1992, Macmillan Press Ltd. pp 67 and briefly the Veronicaceae. It is native to

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Taxonomy

''Digitalis davisiana'' was first scientifically discovered and collected in 1947 by the British botanist

Peter Hadland Davis Peter Hadland Davis FLS, FRSE (18 June 1918 – 5 March 1992) was a British botanist. Life Davis was born on 18 June 1918 in Weston-super-Mare. Initially he was educated at the Nash House, Burnham-on-Sea and then continued his education at Br ...

, who was very active in describing the flora of Turkey, Davis had actually first discovered the species growing on Şandras mountain in Muğla vilayet,

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

, in July,Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns. The Vascular Plant Collection at the Botanische Staatssammlung München. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/vgr4kl accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-11-24. https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/1099001218 but he collected it again a month later in the mountains north-east of the city of

Alanya Alanya (; ), formerly Alaiye, is a beach resort town, resort city, a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Antalya Province, Turkey. It is on the southern coast of Turkey, in the country's Mediterranean Region, Turkey, Mediterranean R ...

, in Antalya vilayet. Although the specimens were initially tentatively determined to be ''D. ambigua'' (now considered to be

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of ''D. grandiflora''), it was thence described as an entirely new species by another British botanist, Vernon Hilton Heywood, in 1949, designating a specimen from Davis' second collection, now housed in the

Kew Herbarium The Kew Herbarium (herbarium code: K) is one of the world's largest and most historically significant herbaria, housed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London, England. Established in the 1850s on the ground floor of Hunter House, it has gro ...

, as the

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

. Heywood coined the

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

''davisiana'' in honour of its discoverer. In 1965, in the last full

monograph A monograph is generally a long-form work on one (usually scholarly) subject, or one aspect of a subject, typically created by a single author or artist (or, sometimes, by two or more authors). Traditionally it is in written form and published a ...

of the genus ''

'', the German botanist classified this species in the

section Section, Sectioning, or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section sig ...

''Grandiflorae'', along with the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

''D. grandiflora'', as well as ''D. atlantica'' and ''D. ciliata''. Heywood also called it the section ''Macranthae''. These were distinguished by being herbaceous species with bell-shaped, ochre to yellow flowers with short

pedicels In botany, a pedicel is a stem that attaches a single flower to the inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branch ...

to one side of the scape. Later molecular studies into the

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or Taxon, taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, M ...

of the genus found that ''D. davisiana'' was correctly placed within this section, but that it should also contain the species ''D. lutea'' and ''D. viridiflora'' from the section ''Tubiflorae''. In this study the section ''Grandiflorae'' was redefined as being

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

biennial Biennial means (an event) lasting for two years or occurring every two years. The related term biennium is used in reference to a period of two years. In particular, it can refer to: * Biennial plant, a plant which blooms in its second year and t ...

, herbaceous, sparsely

pubescent The adjective pubescent may describe: * people or animals undergoing puberty * plants that are hairy, covered in trichomes * insects that are covered in setae In biology, setae (; seta ; ) are any of a number of different bristle- or hair-lik ...

, leaves more or less smooth to the touch, and with flowers in one-sided

raceme A raceme () or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate growth, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are ...

s with short pedicels, a corolla which is bell-shaped or

ventricose Ventricose is an adjective describing the condition of a mushroom, gastropod or plant that it is "swollen, distended, or inflated especially on one side". Mycology In mycology, ventricose is a condition in which the cystidia, lamella or stipe ...

, ochre to yellow and with dark veins on the lower part.

Description

''Digitalis davisiana'' is a perennial plant which flowers in early summer. It grows up to 70 cm (28 in) tall, and 30 cm (12 in) wide. *Leaves: Mid-green, finely toothed, hairless (

glabrous Glabrousness () is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes, or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of a plant or animal, or be due to loss because of a physical condition, ...

), linear lance-shaped leaves to 7–12 cm (3–5 in) in length. *Flowers: Flowers are borne in loose racemes and are pale yellow, with orange veins. They measure 3–4 cm (1.25-1.5 in) in length.

Distribution

It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to southern

(Asiatic

), where it occurs in the mountains to the north of the city of

. It was first found between Durbanas and Derinji in Antalya vilayet, as well as Şandras mountain (''Şandras Dağ'') and possibly elsewhere in Muğla vilayet. It has also been collected in the Geyik Mountains (''Geyik Daglari''), part of the Central Taurus Mountains (''Orta Toroslar'').

Ecology

''Digitalis davisiana'' was originally collected at approximately 1,000 metres in altitude in a forest of black pine (''

Pinus nigra ''Pinus nigra'', the Austrian pine or black pine, is a moderately variable species of pine, occurring across Southern Europe from the Iberian Peninsula and Lower Austria to the eastern Mediterranean, on the Anatolian peninsula of Turkey, Corsica ...

''). It has also been collected at approximately 900 metres in altitude. It has furthermore been recorded near Demirtaş, growing on rocky

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

slopes in somewhat open forests of Turkish pine (''

Pinus brutia ''Pinus brutia'', commonly known as the Turkish pine and Calabrian pine, is a species of pine native to the eastern Mediterranean region. The bulk of its range is in Turkey, but certain varieties are naturalized as far east as Afghanistan. It is ...

'') at 840 to 860 metres in altitude, in association with the other regional endemics: '' Bupleurum subuniflorum'', '' Cephalaria isaurica'', '' Ferulago isaurica'', '' Peucedanum isauricum'' and '' Origanum saccatum''.

Uses

Horticulture

It grows in climates to UK zone 8. It is susceptible to leaf spot and

powdery mildew Powdery mildew is a fungus, fungal disease that affects a wide range of plants. Powdery mildew diseases are caused by many different species of Ascomycota, ascomycete fungi in the order Erysiphales. Powdery mildew is one of the easier plant disea ...

. It is grown in a number of

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...

s, such as the

Botanischer Garten Jena The Botanischer Garten Jena (4.5 hectares) is the second oldest botanical garden in Germany, maintained by the University of Jena and located at Fürstengraben 26, Jena, Thuringia, Germany. It is open daily; an admission fee is charged. The g ...

, the Jardin Botanique de Montréal, the Ecological-Botanical Garden of the University of Bayreuth and the Bergianska trädgården.Telenius A, Shah M (2016). SBT-Living. GBIF-Sweden. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/u8bzai accessed via GBIF.org on 2020-11-24. https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/1065295455

Conservation

According to a study of the Turkish endemic species of Muğla vilayet, ''Digitalis cariensis'' was assessed as '

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

' in the 2000 ''Red Data Book of Turkish Plants''; this was updated to the version 3.1

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

Red List Categories of 2001 (also 'least concern') in the study.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15317214 davisiana Flora of Turkey Plants described in 1949 Taxa named by Vernon Heywood