Digital de Madeira (Isoplexis sceptrum)

Perennial shrub, to 4 m. Woody, highly branched shrub, leaves large and broad (up to 40 cm long), obovate-oblong to lanceolate, margin serrate. Flowers are striking, clustered in terminal spikes, similar to species of Digitalis. Bell-shaped and orangey-yellow with rather purple lines (veins). Highly characteristic of the laurisilva laurel and damp heath forests of Madeira, growing from 600-1,000 m, practically always on inaccessible rocky walls and hillsides. It is particularly prized as an ornamental and is frequently grown in island gardens and along the verges of water channels that wend through the woodland. It is rarely seen in the wild, where it is very localized with a limited number of specimens.