114 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



and very long- and narrow in form. The flowers are large, 

 of a pale but beautifully pure tint of yellow over most of 

 the blossom, but having- one portion a deep rich orange. It 

 is asserted that the smell of the flowers is very obnoxious 

 to flies, and that they may be kept out of a room by 

 keeping- toad-flax in it; but we have never ourselves 

 thought to put the matter to the proof. The present species, 

 though from its commonness ordinarily merely called toad- 

 flax, is in botanical works distinguished as the yellow 

 toad-flax, as a means of identifying it amongst the 

 numerous other species of the genus that are indigenous 

 to our islands. The blossoms of the toad-flax always grow 

 in a rather compact mass at the summit of the stem, and 

 form a very handsome termination; this feature may be 

 very well seen in our illustration. The flowers are of a 

 rather peculiar form, and very similar to the garden snap- 

 dragon, a plant belonging to an allied genus, and possibly 

 better known to some of our readers than this wild flower. 

 The flower of the toad- flax is, however, if anything, just 

 a little more quaint and curious than that of the snap- 

 dragon; both have the same large lip-like forms that, when 

 pressed open, suggest the yawning mouth of some fierce 

 monster, but in the toad- flax the flower bears in addition 

 a very curious spur at its base. A remarkable, but not 

 altogether rare, variety of the plant is met with at times 

 though we have never ourselves been so fortunate as to 

 come across it in which all the blossoms have five spurs 

 and other singular modifications of form that can hardly 

 be well defined in so brief a space as we can spare. 

 As all the flowers of the plant are of this abnormal cha- 

 racter, the general appearance is very peculiar in itself, 

 and very distinct from the normal effect. The fruit 



