Foxglove strange flowers

hello harsamal
youll probably find that these were self seeded or passed on from the birds motion.
as to why the tops are abnormal is due to the ground they are planted in..this plant has struggled to penetrate the below ground soil and then sent a taproot down found the good stuff and hey presto bloomed to show its appreciation.....
Best Wishes
Kev

Wow thanks for this info, it has had us all baffled, I am new to gardening so could not help out Cynthia so I offered to put it on the net
Sam xx

I have exactly the same thing with one of my foxgloves which is the same colour, they have this canterbury bell like flower at the top, I don't remember planting it, though I have lots of foxgloves in the garden. The soil where it is is soft loam, so I'm not sure about it being the ground as there are plenty of other foxgloves around it. Sometimes a plant develops a strange characteristic, I have a sunflower that has a double flower on one stem, but the rest are normal, I think like all living things, you sometimes get a mutation from the original species.

Very often this is as a result of a thing called 'fasciation'. This is where two or more parts of a plant or flower are joined together and produce odd shaped stems or flowers. Sadly it is as a result of mechanical damage rather than genetic so the feature is not passed on to the next generation. Flowers shaped like this on a Foxglove would be rather popular if it was a genetic mutation.