Spikes of two-lipped yellow flowers with an orange 'palate' and a long spur, nicknamed 'butter and eggs'
Common toadflax - Linaria vulgaris.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Common toadflax
Native · perennial, flowers June to November · grassland, verges, waste ground
Linaria vulgaris — Plantaginaceae
Common toadflax is a slender perennial of verges, hedgebanks and waste ground with spikes of yellow-and-orange flowers like tiny snapdragons, which give it the country name 'butter and eggs'. The flower is shut tight, and only strong bees can force their way in to reach nectar in the long spur.
How to spot them
- ▸Dense spike of two-lipped yellow flowers with an orange patch on the lower lip and a long pointed spur
- ▸Narrow, grey-green, flax-like leaves crowded up the stem
- ▸Height up to 75 cm; spreads by creeping roots
- ▸Look-alikes: ivy-leaved toadflax (small lilac flowers on walls); pale toadflax (paler, mostly on sandy ground); snapdragon (garden escape with much broader lips)
How to know it
Its flowers are closed by a swollen lip so that only bumblebees strong enough to prise them apart can reach the nectar in the spur
Common toadflax - Wildlife Trusts list buff-tailed and white-tailed bumblebees, carder bees and honeybees.
The genus name refers to the resemblance of the narrow grey-green leaves to those of flax, Linum
Common toadflax - Linaria.
A member of the plantain family, formerly the figwort family, closely related to snapdragons
Common toadflax - Plantaginaceae.
The small purple-lilac wall-dweller with ivy-shaped leaves, Cymbalaria muralis, is a different relative that arrived from Italy
Common toadflax (ivy-leaved toadflax is the wall species).
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Plantaginaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae), which also contains foxglove, speedwells and snapdragons
- •Wildlife Trusts: flowers June to November; height up to 75 cm
- •Also called 'butter and eggs' (also 'eggs and bacon') for the yellow and orange flowers
- •Bumblebees, carder bees and honeybees visit it; short-tongued insects often bite through the spur to steal nectar
- •Spreads both by seed and by creeping, rooting stems
- •Larval foodplant of the toadflax pug moth and the toadflax brocade, a rare moth of the south-east coast
- •The 'toad' in the name is of uncertain origin
- •Widespread and common throughout its range (Wildlife Trusts)
Drill it — 6 cards
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Common toadflax