Lovely little perennial, quite sticky and hairy, Fairy Foxglove grows on old stone walls and is not a very commonly found plant in Ireland. It only grows to a height of 30cm and is frequently found quite high up on walls, making it difficult to see the detail of it. However it has most distinctive fleshy leaves (5-20mm) which are long, wedge-shaped and lobed at the tip. These are mainly in a basal rosette. The pretty flowers (8-12mm across) have a pink-purple tubular corolla with five notched petal-lobes, the upper two being narrower than the lower three. These flowers are borne in a loose, short-stalked spike and bloom from May to September. This is not a native plant, in fact it is native to mountains in Europe. It belongs to the Scrophulariaceae family.
I first saw this plant growing on the walls outside Kilkenny Castle in 2006 and I photographed it in Kilmacurragh, Co Wicklow in 2009
If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre
