I'iGWORT TRIBE ^3 



plant, flowering in the same months in corn-fiekls. The leaves, however, 

 form a ver}^ distinct specific character, being sharply pointed, and halberd- 

 shaped, with the exception of a few at the base of the plant. It grows both 

 on chalk and gravel, and, though a local plant, is not rare. This species is 

 more bitter than either of the others, and was formerly much used as a 

 medicine in cutaneous disorders. The corolla is yellow, the upper lip lined 

 with purple. 



* * Stems erect, ascending, w diffuse. 



4. Creeping Pale Blue Toad-flax {L. repens). — Leaves linear, scat- 

 tered, or partly whorled, smooth ; flowers in racemes ; sepals lanceolate, as 

 long as the spur, but shorter than the capsule ; seeds angular and wrinkled ; 

 perennial. This plant is rare, occurring chiefly on rocky places and chalky 

 banks, especially near the sea. It has a slender-branched and leafy stem, 

 from a foot to a foot and a half in height; and its leaves are whorled 

 below. The flowers, which appear from July to September, are white or 

 pale lilac, marked with darker purple veins, and having a yellow palate. A 

 form known as L. sepiwti is a hybrid between this and L. vulgaris. 



5. Yellow Toad-flax (L. imlgdris). — Leaves smooth, linear, tapering to 

 a point, crowded ; flowers in dense spikes ; sepals smooth, egg-shaped, acute, 

 shorter than the capsule or spur ; perennial. This is the most common of 

 all the species of Toad-flax. In May we may see its light green stems beset with 

 slender grass-like leaves, of a pale sea-green hue, adorning the hedge-bank 

 or border of the corn-field, and sometimes peering up among the growing 

 corn. During August and September it is among the most showy flowers of 

 our landscape ; and the traveller, far aAvay in the wilds of Siberia, sees it 

 growing there with the yellow silver-weed potentilla, and dreams of home 

 and harvest-fields. Its large and beautiful corollas are pale yellow, with a 

 deep 3^ellow spot, and are crowded into a close cluster froin one to three 

 inches long, on a stem which is one or two feet high. Country people call 

 the plant Butter-and-eggs, Pattens-and-clogs, and Flax-weed. It is Das 

 Flackskraut of the Germans, and La Linaire of the French. The leaves have 

 a bitterish and somewhat saltish taste, and emit, when bruised, a peculiar but 

 not very powerful odour. The plant is still sometimes infused, and taken • 

 medicinally j but it should be carefully used as an internal remedy, as its 

 properties are powerful, though an infusion of its flowers is a good external 

 application for cutaneous affections, and the decoction, employed as a i)ath, 

 has also proved very successful in removing eruptions on the skin. In Sussex 

 it was formerly called Gall-wort, and was put into the water drunk by 

 poultry, in order to cure them when drooping. It Avas greatly esteemed as 

 a remedy for jaundice, and the juice is described as "cleansing the skin 

 wonderfully of all sorts of deformity," and also as strengthening the sight 

 by being dropped into the eyes, though we Avould Avani our readers against 

 this latter use of the herb. The floAvers have been employed in dyeing 

 yelloAv, and, mingled Avith milk, they are often placed on tables in farmhouses, 

 as they serve to attract and destroy flies. A A'ariety (peloria) is sometimes 

 found Avith a regular corolla and five spurs. 



6. Uprig-ht Purple Toad-flax {L. ijelisseridna). — Smooth; leaves 



