Perennial, sometimes biennial, from the Plantaginaceae family, Digitalis ferruginea is native to the eastern Mediterranean region, the Balkans, and the Caucasus, where it grows on dry forest edges, garrigues, and sunny limestone screes, up to about 1,500 meters in altitude.
It forms a basal rosette of narrow, lanceolate, glossy dark green leaves, from which rises a robust and very upright stem, reaching 80 to 150 cm, crowned with a long, dense, and tight spike.
The flowers, numerous and overlapping along the spike, are tubular, from ochre yellow to rusty tawny, marked inside with rusty-brown veins; the lower lip is elongated and fringed with clearly visible white hairs. This particular coloration, between ochre and rust, justifies the species name ferruginea.
In its natural habitat, its flowering extends from June to August. In cultivation, it is similar.
It is cultivated in well-drained, rather poor and calcareous soil, in full sun. Very frugal in water once established, it self-seeds spontaneously and constitutes a remarkable architectural element in dry and natural plantings.