FIGWORT FAMILY 



SCROPHULARIACEAE 



BLUE TOADFLAX 



Linaria canadensis (L.) Dumont 



The Blue Toadflax, unlike the yellow species, is a native of 

 America and although very widely distributed is not nearly as 

 common, and is not considered a weed. It is found in dry soil, 

 especially in sandy places, from Xova 

 Scotia to Florida, west and southwest- 

 ward across the continent. 



It is a smooth annual or sometimes 

 biennial. The flowering stems are very 

 slender, usually simple but sometimes 

 branched, and 4-24 inches high or more. 

 There are usually some sterile shoots, with- 

 out flowers, that spread from the base of 

 the plant and are very leafy. The narrow 

 leaves are entire and sessile, one-quarter of 

 an inch to more than i inch long, and usu- 

 ally those of the sterile shoots, or some of 

 them, are opposite. 



The blue flowers, one-quarter inch long 

 or longer, are produced from May to 

 September in long slender racemes. The 

 5 segments of the calyx are narrow and 

 about as long as the mature capsule. The 

 pedicels are up to one-quarter inch long, 

 erect and appressed in fruit and minutely 

 bracted at the base. The corolla is irregu- 

 lar, 2-lipped and spurred at the base. The 

 threadlike spur is curved and as long as the 

 tube or longer. The upper lip is 2-lobed and 

 the lower 3-lobed. The palate on the lower 

 lip which closes the throat of the corolla 

 consists of a convex 2-ridged projection 

 which is white. Dwarf forms in which the 

 flowers have no corolla are frequently 

 <t. \i found. There are 4 stamens with long 



slender filaments. The fruit is a smooth, 

 globular, 2-celled capsule which opens at the end by a pair 

 of 3-toothed valves and contains many small brown, angled 

 and wingless seeds. 



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