YELLOW 



BUTTER-AND-EGGS. TOADFLAX. 



Linaria vulgaris. Figwort Family. 



Stem. — Smooth; erect; one to three feet high. Leaves. — Alternate; 

 linear or nearly so. Flowers. — Of two shades of yellow ; growing in termi- 

 nal racemes. Calyx. — Five-parted. Corolla. — Pale yellow tipped with 

 orange; long-spurred; two-lipped; closed in the throat. Stamens. — Four. 

 Pistil. — One. 



The bright blossoms of butter-and-eggs grow in full, close 

 clusters which enliven the waste places along the roadside so 

 commonly that little attention is paid to these beautiful and 

 conspicuous flowers. They would be considered a ''pest" if 

 they did not display great discrimination in their choice of 

 locality, generally selecting otherwise useless pieces of ground. 

 The common name of butter-and-eggs is unusually appropriate, for 

 the two shades of yellow match perfectly their namesakes. Like 

 nearly all our common weeds, this plant has been utilized in 

 various ways by the country people. It yielded what was con- 

 sidered at one time a valuable skin lotion, while its juice mingled 

 with milk constitutes a fly-poison. Its generic name, Linaria, 

 and its English title, toadflax, arose from a fancied resemblance 

 between its leaves and those of the flax. 



DYER'S GREEN-WEED. WOAD-WAXEN NEW ENG- 

 LAND WHIN. 



Genista tinctoria. Pulse Family. 



A shrubby plant from one to two feet high. Leaves. — Lance-shaped. 

 Flowers. — Papilionaceous; yellow; growing in spiked racemes. 



This is another foreigner which has established itself in East- 

 ern New York and Massachusetts, where it covers the barren 

 hill-sides with its yellow flowers in early summer. It is a com- 

 mon English plant, formerly valued for the yellow dye which it 

 yielded. It is an undesirable intruder in pasture-lands, as it , 

 gives a bitter taste to the milk of cows which feed upon it. 



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