Stats

Lifespan: Perennial
Size: Medium
Diet: Photosynthetic
Biome: Temperate grassland
Range: Europe
Movement: Sessile
Breeding: Seeds
Defense: Toxins
Status: Common

About

Common toadflax produces cheerful yellow-and-orange snapdragon-like blooms whose closed lips can only be forced open by heavy bumblebees — the exact pollinators it evolved to admit. It spreads freely along roadsides and disturbed ground across Europe and North America.

Life cycle

1.
seed
A dormant seed waits for water and warmth before germinating.
2.
sprout
A first shoot emerges with cotyledon leaves and a tap root reaching down.
3.
sapling
A young plant grows true leaves and a stem or trunk, putting on height each season.
4.
mature
Fully grown, flowering or fruiting at adult size.

Learn more

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Lamiales
Family: Plantaginaceae
Genus: Linaria
Species: Linaria vulgaris