Discover Top Posts Tagged with #toadflax

Texas toadflax (Nuttallanthus texanus), a newcomer this year (that is, I don’t remember seeing it last year).

It’s a member of the veronica family, so it’s related to foxglove and snapdragons. It does look a lot like the wild Nuttall’s snapdragon with a similar shape and color.

It appears across the western U.S.

#chaparral #botany #wildflowers #toadflax #purple wildflowers

Botnia Paradise Flower Headcanons

Part 3 of 8. Bertel's flower is gulsporre ("toadflax" in English). This is a hardy flower that grows all over Europe, especially common by the side of roads (and ditches?). To me there's something bold and flashy about its shape and the vivid colour; I can imagine it with big dreams. The English name toadflax is funny and sounds conman-esque to me. But note that the flower's Swedish name literally means 'yellow spur': a similarity to Benjamin's flower (field larkspur/riddarsporre). Both Benjamin and Bertel act as catalysts in the story: Benjamin is chasing his own dream, but he also spurs Julia on in her ambition. And while Bertel does have selfish reasons to go on a cruise and escape his personal problems, he also genuinely wishes Dan-Ole well and spurs him on to try to find romance.

#toadflax #flower headcanons #botnia paradise #bertel bäck #bp flower suite #kaj fanart #kaj musicals #my art #also while i know flax in english is the plant you get linen from #in swedish it's slang for luck

#Judit Minot #Toadflax

Linaria vulgaris (yellow toadflax) and Linaria purpurea (purple toadflax)

As I was saying the other day, a disproportionate number of the world's wildflowers are either yellow or purple and nothing demonstrates this better than these two European 'invasive weeds'; yellow and purple toadflax. No one knows when these plants first arrived in North America but I would guess that they probably showed up sometime in the first five years of European colonization - on a pair of muddy boots.

Yellow toadflax is mildly toxic to livestock but purple toadflax is very poisonous. Probably because our European cattle, sheep and goats coevolved with purple toadflax, they generally avoid eating it. Still farmers don't like the way purple toadflax takes over their fields and it's regarded as a serious agricultural pest.

Recent studies of botanical diversity show only plants that people like are prospering in the Anthropocene. Native plants are becoming extinct in unprecedented numbers and being outcompeted by non-native, invasive weeds is part of the problem. But somewhere in my rebel heart, I admire weeds. Weeds grow wherever they want, they don't seek our approval and they don't care what we think of them. No doubt, long after we're gone, it will be the 'weeds' that will inherit the Earth.