Linaria alpina - Alpine Toadflax

Phylum: Magnoliophyta - Class: Equisetopsida - Order: Lamiales - Family: Plantaginaceae

Above: Linaria alpina flowers in Italy's Dolomite Mountains

This strikingly colourful wildflower thrives on exposed mountain shale containing so little soil that rank vegetation cannot compete. Clumps of Alpine Toadflax can turn areas of dull rock slabs and scree into attractive purple-and-orange spattered landscapes.

Description

The flowers of Alpine Toadflax are mauve-purple with two orange lobes in the center of the lower lip. Superficially like Snapdragons, the flowers aretypically 25mm long and 18mm across; they have long spurs and are borne in small clusters on short stems.

Plants typically grow to a height of 12 to 25 cm, forming dense clumps of trailing stems with blue-green strap-like or narrowly lanceolate leaves which are alternate along the stems.

Distribution

Alpine Toadflax grows in many of the mountain ranges of central and southern Europe, including parts of France, Spain, Italy and Slovenia. The pictures shown on this page were taken in the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy.

Habitat

Linaria alpina readily colonises disturbed areas of alkaline scree, rocky outcrops and unstable rocky slopes, mainly at altitudes of 2000 to 3000 metres above sea level.

Flowering times

Deoending on altitude, Alpine Toadflax can usually be seen in flower in June, July and August. The specimens shown on this page were photographed in June.

Similar species

Linaria algarviana and Linaria amethystea are lowland Mediterranean species with purplish flowers; they are found mainly in sandy coastal habitats and they do not occur in alpine llocations.

Etymology

Linaria, the genus name, suggests a similarity to Flax (Linum species), but clearly Alpine Toadflax is not blue enough to make this connection and its form is very different from the flowers of flax species. (Maybe such a confusion is a mistake more likely to be made by a toad.) The specific epithet alpina is straightforward, however, and implies that this is an alpine (mountain) wildflower.

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