156 OUK ROCK-GARDEN 



clover, and white dead-nettle coming third, each with 

 twenty-one as their total. 1 The moral is that as all 

 these plants had to be named, and as an enormous 

 number of people entered the competition, we may 

 take it that not a few folk know the toadflax when 

 they see it, and to know it is to appreciate its 

 charm. 



A popular alternate name for the toadflax is 

 butter and eggs, the lighter portion of the flower 

 suggesting by its colour the first simile, while the 

 deep orange lower lip is very suggestive in form 

 and colour of the yolk of an egg. The generic name, 

 Linaria, is derived from linum, the Latin name for 

 the flax, the leaves of the toadflax and of the true 

 flax being very similar in appearance. Though not 

 used by the regular practitioner, the toadflax has 

 long enjoyed a reputation in rustic circles, applied 

 internally or in the form of a plaster or poultice, in 

 the curing of various ailments. 



We have in Britain seven species of toadflax, 

 while an eighth may be included perhaps at a pinch, 

 since it approaches us so nearly as Jersey. Those 

 that are best worth cultivating in our rock-garden, 

 after the commonest of them all the one we have 

 just been dealing with are the pale Linaria and the 



1 As we have named the daisy and the dandelion, we may 

 add that the former was absent from seven out of the twenty- 

 four sets we analysed, while the latter was missing from 

 eight, 



