Consider-the-Lilies Web Gallery
Butter-and-Eggs
I found this nonnative, herbaceous wildflower growing on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Although it can grow as tall as thirty-six-inches when left undisturbed—as is the case for these specimens, growing on an unmaintained shoulder of the Parkway—it can compensate for challenges in its habitat, such as mowing, by flowering at a shorter height.
Three other characteristically tall plants, Eastern Ninebark , Chicory and Queen Anne's Lace, also can be found flowering at almost ground level when necessary.
Here is another community of Linaria Vulgaris that illustrates this adaptive mechanism.
These plants are able to flourish and produce flowers at about four-inches, the height dictated by the whirring blade of the Park Service mower.
(Can you spot two Deptford Pink blossoms nestled down in the grass beside these plants?)
I think the common name used in North America is a good description of the blossom coloration: the yellow shade is certainly buttery and the orange and white together do remind me of an egg.
In Great Britain, however, this wildflower, besides some variations on the "butter and eggs" similarity, is also known as, depending on the locale, Weasel Snout, Dragon Bushes, and Fox and Hounds.
This image looks to me like a broken egg, with the egg yolk and white dripping over the edge of the shell.
I guess what one sees here in a flower, or in a cloud formation, or craggy mountain top, often depends on one's imaginative point of view!
Well, at least the scientific name isn't so puzzling: This plant was often found in days-gone-by flourishing with cultivated Flax (Linum usitatissimum), which is the source of the fiber used to weave linen cloth. So botanists acknowledged this by dubbing this plant Linaria or linen-like and vulgaria or common.
I like Butter-and-Eggs better!
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