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A crumbling bit of wall where the delicate ivy-leaved toad-flax hangs its light branches, or a bit of grey thatch with patches of dark moss on its shoulder and a troop of grass-stems on its ridge, is a thing to visit.
They may occur anywhere in the wide range of the toad-flax, and the capacity of repeatedly producing them has lasted some centuries at least, and is perhaps even as old as the species itself. Leaving aside such stray mutations, we may now consider the probable constitution of the great lines of the genealogic tree of the evening primroses, and of the whole vegetable and animal kingdom at large.
If the red hue is combined with a yellow ground-color in the species, the variety will be yellow and the hybrid will have the red and yellow mixture of the species as for instance, in the genus Geum. The toad-flax has an orange-colored palate, and a variety occurs in which the palate is of the same yellow tinge as the remaining parts of the corolla.
The term toad as a prefix, like that of dog, frequently means spurious, as in the toad-flax, a plant which, before it comes into flower, bears a tolerably close resemblance to a plant of the true flax. The frog, again, supplies names, such as frog's-lettuce, frog's-foot, frog-grass, and frog-cheese; while hedgehog gives us such names as hedgehog-parsley and hedgehog-grass.
Yet it is pleasant to remember that, in our climate, there are no weeds so persistent and lasting and universal as grass. Grass is the natural covering of the fields. There are but four weeds that I know of milkweed, live-forever, Canada thistle, and toad-flax that it will not run out in a good soil. We crop it and mow it year after year; and yet, if the season favors, it is sure to come again.
But all the other outlaws of the farm and garden come to us from over seas; and what a long list it is: John's-wort Chickweed, Purslane, Mallow, Darnel, Poison hemlock, Hop-clover, Yarrow, Wild radish, Wild parsnip, Chicory, Live-forever, Toad-flax, Sheep-sorrel, Mayweed, and others less noxious.
Linaria italica is a hybrid toad-flax between L. genistifolia and L. vulgaris, a cross which I have repeated in my garden. Drosera obovata is a hybrid sundew between D. anglica and D. rotundifolia. Primula variabilis is a hybrid between the two common primroses, P. officinalis and P. grandiflora.
Many cases of pelorism afford promising material for further studies of experimental mutations. The peloric toad-flax is only the prototype of what may be expected in other cases. No opportunity should be lost to increase the as yet too scanty, evidence on this point. Mutations occur as often among cultivated plants as among those in the wild state. Garden flowers are known to vary markedly.
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