SWISS FLOWERS. 99 



78. Linaria.— Toad-flax. 



{PLATE XLVIIL) 



The Snap-dragons are among the favourites of children, 

 and we have heard of those who opened their mouths and 

 fed them with pieces of bread — a more satisfactory thing 

 than that of holding bread to the lips of dolls, as no doubt 

 it disappeared in the mouth of the flower. These flowers 

 often ornament old walls, nor will they refuse those that 

 are in the midst of the city. The Linarias differ from the 

 Antirrhinums only in having a spur; of these the pretty 

 yellow Toad-flax, with its sulphur-coloured petal and deep 

 orange mouth, is a well-known example. 



L. Alpina (Fig. 78) is decidedly one of the prettiest of 

 its family, though not so large as the yellow Toad-flax. Its 

 light brittle stems straggle over the stones left by the moun- 

 tain-stream, or glacier, clothed with smooth glaucous linear 

 leaves, the lower ones being four together. These leaves are 

 almost covered by the flowers. The calyx has Ave rather 

 deep divisions ; the four stamens, two long and two short, 

 are covered by the lip of the corolla, which is tubular in 

 form, swollen, prolonged into a spur at the base, and shut at 

 the other end by a two-lipped mouth, the upper lip of which 

 is long, split into two ; the inferior has three lobes, and is 

 furnished with a palate. This lip is of a bright orange ; the 



7 * 



