The yellow flowers of the rattlebox are found in the sandy meadows and along the roadsides during the summer. Both the generic and English names refer to the rattling of the loose seeds within the inflated pod.
Butter-and-Eggs. Toadflax.
Linaria vulgaris. Figwort Family.
Stem.—Smooth, erect, one to three feet high. Leaves.—Alternate, linear or nearly so. Flowers.—Of two shades of yellow, growing in terminal racemes. Calyx.—Five-parted. Corolla.—Pale yellow tipped with orange, long-spurred, two-lipped, closed in the throat. Stamens.—Four. Pistil.—One.
The bright blossoms of butter-and-eggs grow in full, close clusters which enliven the waste places along the roadside so commonly, that little attention is paid to these beautiful and conspicuous flowers. They would be considered a “pest” if they did not display great discrimination in their choice of locality, usually selecting otherwise useless pieces of ground. The common name of butter-and-eggs is unusually appropriate, for the two shades of yellow match perfectly their namesakes. Like nearly all our common weeds, this plant has been utilized in various ways by the country people. It yielded what was considered at one time a valuable skin lotion, while its juice mingled with milk constitutes a fly-poison. Its generic name, Linaria, and its English title, toadflax, arose from a fancied resemblance between its leaves and those of the flax.
Wild Senna.
Cassia Marilandica. Pulse Family.
Stem.—Three or four feet high. Leaves.—Divided into from six to nine pairs of narrowly oblong leaflets. Flowers.—Yellow, in short clusters from the axils of the leaves. Calyx.—Of five sepals. Corolla.—Of five slightly unequal, spreading petals, usually somewhat spotted with reddish-brown. Stamens.—Five to ten, unequal, some of them often imperfect. Pistil.—One. Pod.—Long and narrow, slightly curved, flat.
This tall, striking plant, with clusters of yellow flowers which appear in midsummer, grows abundantly along many of the New England roadsides, and also far south and west, thriving best in sandy soil. Although a member of the Pulse family its blossoms are not papilionaceous.
PLATE XLIX
BUTTER-AND-EGGS.—L. vulgaris.