This attractive, low-growing plant is mainly found growing in or over walls and similar places where its roots can get a grip in sparse soil that does not remain wet for very long.

Ive-leaved Toadflax is a perennial plant with reddish stems and ivy-shaped leave which give it its name. It was originally a garden plant that has escaped and become naturalised throughout the UK except in the far northeast.

The flowers are a pale mauve colour and have white and yellow centres. The fruits are capsule-shaped which grow on long stalks that gradually recurve towards and into a likely place where the plant can get a new 'toe-hold'.

Ivy-leaved toadflax blooms from late spring right through the summer and into the autumn.
The plants shown on this page were photographed in West Wales in June.