Foxglove – Toxic Plant of the Week

Welcome to another toxic plant Monday – time to learn about another nasty plant. Today’s plant is a lovely one with the most enchanting name, the Foxglove is lovely, but not for horses.

A Little About Foxglove

Digitalis purpurea is also called Foxglove. This is a biennial with soft, hairy, ovate leaves. Flowers are purple/pik/white (often spotted with other colors) and grow on spikes.

How Dangerous Is It?

This plant is unpalatable to horses and generally used as decorative plantings or flowers. They contain highly toxic digitoxin and cardiac glycosides so it pays to know how dangerous they are.

All parts of this plant are toxic and can be fatal to equines.

What To Look For

You know your animal the best, so you should know when something is amiss. Foxglove toxicity symptoms include loss of coordination, irregular heartbeat and convulsions.

Learn More

Be sure to check out the Foxglove page to learn more about the plant and while you are at it why not check out more toxic plants?

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*It should be noted that I’m not a veterinarian. This information is written specifically for horses and should be used for reference purposes only. If you think your horse has eaten something toxic call your vet right away.