46 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



Mediterranean basin, it has become naturalised over almost 

 the whole of Europe, and has made itself thoroughly at 

 home amongst ourselves. It seems to thrive best on rocks 

 or old walls that are near the edges of streams, though the 

 neighbourhood of water does not seem absolutely necessary. 

 We have often seen it growing out of the mortar-joints of 

 crumbling brickwork far from any stream ; but the finest 

 examples we can remember to have noticed were on the old 

 walls that skirt the towing-path on so many points on the 

 Thames above London, and in a similar situation bordering 

 a canal at Bath. Wherever the plant is found at all it is to 

 be found in profusion, large spaces of wall being filled by its 

 graceful tapestry of foliage and blossom hanging from every 

 available crevice. The plant is sometimes called by country 

 folks the " mother of thousands." In Italy it is the " plant 

 of the Madonna." In turning over a number of old studies 

 we find one that we made some years ago of this plant, 

 and see that the specimen from which our sketch was made 

 was gathered from the walls of Ockharn Church, Surrey, a 

 church that has a good deal of thirteenth century work 

 about it, and in its crumbling decay affords many a 

 weather-worn gap between the stones. We mention this 

 locality because it gives so good an illustration of the 

 perfect way in which the plant has naturalised itself, for 

 this church stands in a thoroughly rural district, and we 

 may feel morally certain that no human hand planted 

 this graceful herb upon its ancient walls. The plant is 

 a perennial, and its flowering time extends from May to 

 September. 



The ivy-leaved toadflax is so perfectly distinct from 

 the other members of the genus Linaria, and, as we shall 

 see presently, so utterly belies its generic name, that there 



