Common Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) Photo By Ivar Leidus – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=118357176

Dear Readers, I went for a walk in Heartwood today with my friend L, and as we drove through the country lanes I saw literally hundreds of Common Toadflax growing alongside the roadside. What a pretty flower this is! It looks so exotic that it’s hard to think of it as a native, but there we go – seeds from the plant were discovered in deposits in East Anglia that date back 424,000 years, so it’s clear that it’s been here a long, long time.

The flowers need a fairly hefty insect to open them, and so the plant’s main pollinator is the bumblebee. A whole raft of moth caterpillars also feed on it, including the striking Toadflax Brocade moth (Calphasia lunula) – in fact, the moth has been introduced to North America to help control Common Toadflax, as it can become invasive if there is nothing to feed upon it.

Toadflax Brocade caterpillar (Photo By Lilly M – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1380471)

Toadflax Brocade Adult (Photo By © entomartIn  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=313597)

And here’s a poem, by Jonathan Bracker – I love the image of the young man cycling along,  kitchen knife in pocket in case he sees anything worth ‘relocating’ to the garden of the rented house he and his wife shared. There’s a simplicity to it that I find rather moving. See what you think!

Terence Remembers by Jonathan Bracker

When a man or woman is old
And has been married
And their spouse is no longer alive
That person may spend time remembering.

One old man remembers butter-and-eggs,
The flower he was especially pleased
To find when as a young man he bicycled
Alleys in Terre Haute to look into backyards

On both sides of the alleys, with homemakers
Or husbands sometimes seen hanging wash
On a clothesline or taking out the trash.
That old man recalls the kitchen knife

He had on his person so that if he chose
To attempt to transplant a wildflower he saw before him
He could stop the bicycle, go over and,
If no one was looking, dig up a specimen

To try to grow in the earth in front of the house
He and his young wife rented, for them
And for neighbors walking by, to enjoy.
He is surprised now, and pleased, to recall

Butter-and-eggs, flower which looked like snapdragons.
He liked its yellow-and-white blossoms so!
Intrigued, though there is no good reason for it,
He goes ahead and googles “butter-and-eggs.” He finds

Its Latin name is unflattering: Linaria vulgaris
And is mildly interested to discover
Butter-and-eggs is also known as yellow toadflax or common
Toadflax. But Terence prefers to call it what it was, to him.

And now, let’s have a look at my original post, from 2015….

Common Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris)

Dear Readers, this week I have decided to celebrate a ‘weed’ that I have seen a hundred yards from my house in East Finchley, and also in the ravines in Central Toronto – Common toadflax. What a world traveller this plant is. In Canada, it is also known as Butter and Eggs, possibly a reflection on the delicious but dairy-heavy breakfasts that are available everywhere in that noble country. When I was a small child, my brother and I  would pluck the flowers from Snapdragons in my grandmother’s garden and chase one another around whilst pretending to ‘bite’ with the blooms. It comes as no surprise that Common toadflax is also used around the world for the same kinds of capers, and that many of its other names refer to its shape – Calve’s Nose, Puppy Dog’s Mouths, and my favourite, Squeezejaws.

Common toadflax is native to Europe and most of Eurasia, but was introduced to North America about 300 years ago, and is listed in as a noxious weed in several provinces and states. It is certainly a tough, perennial plant, which can even survive hard-pruning, but it is useful for pollinators. Its flowers need a heavy insect to open them, and so, like our domesticated antirrhinums (which are part of the same family) it is a great favourite with bumblebees.

Common toadflax has been used to produce a yellow dye for cloth in Germany, and was boiled in milk as a flykiller in Sweden. It has been used medicinally for liver problems, maybe because its yellow colour indicated that it might be useful against jaundice. Its flowers were also used to make an eye ointment. Although the plant is not native to North America, it has been used by the Iroquois as an ingredient in a potion against enchantment, and by the Chippewa people to counteract congestive diseases. There is something about its elegant shape and delicate colours that makes it look as if it would be health-giving, to my eye at least.

One of the most delightful alternative names for Common toadflax is ‘Imprudent Lawyer’ (sometimes written as ‘Impudent Lawyer’). How on earth this innocent flower came to be associated with the legal profession is anybody’s guess, but I fear that the plant has been given this name because of the size of its ‘mouth’. And while we are on the subject of names, ‘Brideweed’ and ‘Bridewort’ are yet more ways to refer to Linaria vulgaris. Is this because the freshness of the flowers made it perfect for a bride’s bouquet or is it, as described in Andy’s Northern Ontario Wildflowers because the plant was used as a cure for a pig disease called ‘Bride?’ The explanation, as with so many of these things, is lost in history, but how I love that one ‘weed’ can have so many different local titles. It seems to me that we name the things that we love and notice, and on that basis, Common toadflax is a very well loved plant indeed.