Purple Toadflax

Purple Toadflax

I have an image of a fastidious gardener weeding out everything without “papers,” that is, everything that didn’t either come with a name and pedigree or that self-seeds in everyday English (such as “primrose”). I’m not such a gardener, to put it mildly, and most of the time there is something firmly rooted in the actual ground outside with no ID. “I don’t know what it is,” I say, although I know perfectly well what it is. It’s right there! For about the past six weeks, there’s been one such plant in particular – in fact about a dozen of them: tall, slender stalks fringed with fairly short, dark green leaves and a pyramid-shaped cluster of tiny flowers at the top. As of the day before yesterday, I know they’re purple. 

I always liked the plant anyway, it’s graceful and self-contained. But when I learned it was called Purple Toadflax– a native wildflower – it was like kissing the proverbial frog! What a name! Maybe it takes an American to hear the buttoned-up silliness, the music, the irrepressible Englishness of it! And giggle.