toad-flax
(ˈtəʊdflæks)
[f. toad n. + flax, from the flax-like appearance of the foliage.]
A popular name of the European plant Linaria vulgaris; hence extended as a generic name to other species of Linaria, as Ivy-leaved Toad-flax, L. Cymbalaria, Purple T., L. purpurea. bastard toad-flax, a name for Thesium linophyllum, and the American genus Comandra.
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens i. liv. 79 Stanworte, wilde flaxe, or Tode flax, hath small, slender, blackish stalkes. 1630 Drayton Muses' Elysium iii. Wks. (1748) 448/1 By toad⁓flax which your nose may taste, If you have a mind to cast. 1776 Lee Bot. 353/1 Toad Flax, Antirrhinum. 1866 Treas. Bot., Toadflax. Bastard, Thesium linophyllum; also an American name for Comandra. 1868 J. T. Burgess Eng. Wild Flowers 211 The ‘butter-and-eggs’ of the country folk—the Yellow Toadflax. 1879 Geo. Eliot Theo. Such ii. 50 A crumbling bit of wall where the delicate ivy-leaved toad-flax hangs its light branches. 1893 Couch Delect. Duchy 21 A round stone wall, over which the toad-flax spread in a tangle. |