Originally a native of Asia, butter-and-eggs (Linaria vulgaris) was introduced into the United States by way of Europe and can now be found in temperate zones throughout the world. Its success at propagating itself can be traced to a number of factors.
Photo above courtesy of Joe Cook
Its orange color attracts many insects, especially those bumblebees and honeybees that are strong enough to open the flower’s lip and are large enough to reach inside the tube to obtain the nectar. While doing this, they rub against the stamen, which drops pollen onto their bodies. Once fertilized, one flower can be the progenitor of many new plants, as each blossom is able to produce a prodigious amount of seeds. In addition, butter-and-eggs is able to send up new shoots from its spreading rhizomes; this is why you may often find the plant growing in large colonies.
Following the Doctrine of Signatures, which holds that a plant can cure the body part it resembles, butter-and-eggs, with its resemblance to a mouth and throat, was used to treat sore gums and throat ailments. Those who were constipated made a tea from the flowers, while others used it to treat jaundice. The flowers were mixed into skin lotions, and the juices have been blended with milk to be used as a pesticide.
Incidentally, in his highly informative book, “Hedgemaids and Fairy Candles,” Jack Sanders states that he has come across more than thirty different common names for butter-and-eggs. Among the most colorful are patten and clogs, lion’s mouth, devil’s head, deadman’s bones, dragon bushes, calve’s snout, and maybe most attention-grabbing, impudent lawyer.
Flower Fast Facts
FLOWER: The irregular, one inch long, yellow (the “butter”) flower is two-lipped. The upper lip is two-lobed, while the lower, three-lobed, spreading lip has a prominent blotch of orange (the “egg”).
LEAVES AND STEM: Butter-and-eggs attains a height of one to three feet, with the approximately two-inch, grass-like leaves growing alternately on the upper part of the stem and the lower leaves appearing opposite or in whorls.
BLOOM SEASON: June to October
About This Series
“Mountain Wildflowers” features a wildflower from the Blue Ridge region each month from March to October. Leonard M. Adkins has written for Blue Ridge Country for more than two decades and is the author of 20 books about travel, hiking and nature. His Wildflowers of the Appalachian Trail, which received the prestigious National Outdoor Book Award, provides the photographs and some of the information he writes about in each “Mountain Wildflowers.” It and his other works may be obtained through his website.
