174 THE TOAD FLAX. 



The Stamens (2) are didynamous (dis, two, dynamis, 

 power), two of them being longer than the other two. The 

 law of symmetry would require a 5th stamen, as it does a 

 3d and 4th in Veronica.* 



The Ovary is in the midst of all (2), surmounted by a 

 slender style, and maturing to an oblong capsule (3) of 2 

 cells (4). The many seeds are wing-margined (5), escaping 

 finally by chinks opening between the thin valves. 



In the figure (6) is represented a seed dissected, showing 

 a straight 2-lobed embryo in copious albumen. 



The Name is Linaria vulgaris. Linaria alludes to its 

 general likeness to the Flax (Linum, whence the word 

 linen) ; vulgaris is given because it is common too common 

 indeed, throughout Europe, Asia, and America, for it often 

 grows to an army of intrusive weeds difficult to extirpate 

 by reason of its long creeping roots, f Another species, 

 L. Cymbalaria the pretty Ivy-leaved Toad Flax, is often 

 seen in the greenhouse and parlor. \ 



Classification. These genera, Linaria and Veronica, 

 represent the great Order SCKOPULABIACE^J or Figworts. 



tracted by the light color and the powerful odor, they hover over the plant, while they 

 thrust their long sucking trunk into tube after tube as they flit about, apparently 

 robbing the plant of its honey, but really serving the very end of Nature as pollen- 

 bearers. 



* In Pentstemon, a nearly related genus, the 5th stamen appears as a filament 

 without an anther, and in Mullein, of the same order, the 5th stamen is complete. 



t Mr. Watson, in his Annals of Philadelphia, says that it was introduced from 

 Wales, as a garden flower, by a Mr. Ranstead, a Welsh resident. Hence one of its 

 popular names, Ranstead. This plant may remind us that not everything in Nature 

 was designed for the use of man alone. Flowers grew, blossomed, and bore fruit in 

 the geologic ages, before man was created. The color's, odors, and forms of flowers 

 are made to subserve ends of their own. We may delight in these beautiful floral 

 contrivances even without knowing their design in the economy of the plant ; but 

 greater should be our admiration when we discover that by a wise frugality of means 

 the beautiful is also the useful and the necessary ! 



$ " The capsules of our Ivy-leaved Toad-flax (Linaria Cymbalaria) before ripening 

 turn round toward the wall on which the plant so often grows and creeps, and place 

 themselves in a crevice or hole, so as to shed the seeds, when ripened, in a place 

 where they will thrive, instead of scattering them on the ground where they would 

 be wasted." Pratt" 1 s Flowering Plants of Great Britain. 



