On a visit to the meadow in mid-July, I (Brigid) was stopped in my tracks by a tiny flower growing right on the gravelly edge, underneath the rope that separates the flying area from the tarmac in front of the amphitheatre seats. I knew at once that it was not just a new species for the meadow, but completely new to me. I had never seen anything quite like it.

Round-leaved Fluellen

As soon as I got home, I got out my flower books and very quickly found it: described as local, and found on disturbed chalky ground, it has the splendid name of Round-leaved Fluellen (Kickxia spuria). No, I hadn’t heard of it either. But I was able to find it so easily because I recognised that it had to be a member of the plant family called Scrophulariaceae, the Figwort family. Kickxia is named after a 19th century Belgian botanist, Jean-Jacques Kickx, (who seems to have specialised in fungi).

I was very lucky, though. Flower shape is often the best guide to plant identification, at least for working out which family you are dealing with. Plants of this family are a difficult group, because their flowers take an unusually wide range of shapes – perhaps the widest of any of our big flower families. As a result, it’s often only possible to recognise a new discovery by its resemblance to some other flower in the group you already know. In this case, it strongly resembled some familiar plants, so I could find it.

White deadnettle

There are a few plants from this family around the park, one of them being one of the commonest late summer flowers in the meadow; so we’ll start with that and the flowers rather like it. This falls into a group that could easily be mistaken for a member of the Dead-nettle family, of which the meadow has lots: Red and White Dead-nettle, Wild Basil and Marjoram. The flowers are made of a tube, with an upper point and a lower lip that is usually three-lobed. They are arranged usually around the stem.

Red Bartsia	Yellow Bartsia

The common Figwort flower in our meadow is another one most people haven’t heard of, called Red Bartsia (Odontites vernus – “toothbrush of the spring!”, pretty odd for a flower of late summer). It’s a slightly woody, branching plant whose flowers unusually are all on one side of a slightly curving stem, enclosed in purplish bracts. It is a plant that is almost never identifiable from flower books, unless they use photos! Perhaps the most interesting things about this rather odd-looking plant are that it is semi-parasitic on other plants, and that it has two sub-species which can grow together. One, O. v. vernus, is the common plant over much of Britain but in Hampshire is only found on the northern chalk, and interestingly it has been found at Thruxton. The other, O. v. serotina (“late”), is the common one in the South. The main difference is the angle at which the branches of the plants grow, but this is not always easy to observe. However it is perfectly possible we have both in the meadow. Another member of the Figwort family, Yellow Bartsia, Parentucellia viscosa, which we do not have, is a fairly uncommon species in Britain, but is thought to be increasing. It is found in damp grassland, usually close to the sea. This photograph was taken on the Dorset coast.

Eyebright	Lousewort	Field cow-wheat	Common cow-wheat

Some other plants belonging to the Figwort family, but not found in our meadow, also have this superficially Dead-nettle like appearance. These include Eyebright, a little white flower common on well-grazed chalk downland, Lousewort, one of a group of related plants that are particularly Dead-nettle like, with their pink flowers, Yellow Rattle, also found on chalk downland, and Cow-wheats.

Yellow Rattle	Monkey Musk

The photograph of Field Cow-wheat Melampyrum arvense (“of the ploughed land”), was taken in France. It has been extinct in Hampshire since the 1920s, but still occurs in the Isle of Wight and a few other isolated sites in southern Britain. The Common Cow-wheat Melampyrum pratense (“black mustard of the meadow”), a woodland species in Hampshire, is less spectacular than Field Cow-wheat, having narrow yellow flowers. The garden flower Monkey Musk (Mimulus guttatus: “mimulus” means “little mimic” and “guttatus” means “spotted”), which grows wild along many streams, is another example of this flower shape.

Common Toadflax

Another representative of this family, with a rather tenuous presence in the meadow, only found towards the bottom of the right-hand hedgerow, but plentiful in the deer enclosure, is the pretty Common Toadflax Linaria vulgaris (“Linaria” from “linum”, flax – compare “linen”). This plant has many fine leaves and a spike of miniature snap-dragon flowers, each with a long spur behind it, in two tones of yellow. That tells us that Snap-dragon Antirrhinum - nose-like - is also a member of this family, as is another common flower not found in the meadow, Ivy-leaved Toadflax, which has mauve and yellow flowers and trails across rocks and dry walls.

Common Figwort

Into this group, or not far from it, fits our new discovery, Round-leaved Fluellen, which I was able to track down from its general similarity to toadflaxes, though the flower is more globular in shape, and rather inconspicuous if you don’t notice the maroon upper petal. In fact this species bridges the divide in flower shape between toadflaxes and the true figworts. These are usually tall, robust plants with large toothed leaves and small round flowers in long spikes, with little reddish petals poking out of a round green cup. Common Figwort, Scrophularia nodosa, is a common weed of damp woodland (and my garden!). The genus gets its name because it was thought to be good for scrofula, a disease in which the glands of the neck swell up and make the sufferer look like a fat sow which has large swellings on its hind legs (Latin “scrofa”). “Nodosa” means “knotty”. These photographs were taken in Dorset. Often you will first notice that there is something small and dark on a flower and when you look more closely you will find these little beetles. They stand out well on the brighter, lighter flowers such as white yarrow and pinkish-purple creeping thistle.

Foxglove

One other genus of this family is instantly recognisable, though it looks nothing like any of the others. This is the Foxglove genus Digitalis (“finger-like”), of which our common woodland (and park) species is purpurea, “purple”. Foxglove leaves are strongly toxic, causing heart damage, but the drugs extracted from them, digitalin and digoxin, are used in appropriate doses to treat heart failure. This picture was taken in the deer enclosure, so not very far from the meadow.

Great Mullein	Dark Mullein	Hoary mullein	Mullein Moth Caterpillar

Finally, two families with flowers so different from all those considered so far you could be excused for not believing they are related. First are the mulleins, of which the Great Mullein Verbascum thapsus must be a candidate for our most imposing wild flower. From a big basal rosette of huge, downy leaves (the word “mullein” is a corruption of Latin “mollis”, which means “soft”), this plant sends up a column of large, flat yellow flowers that can often be 2 metres tall. “Verbascum” was the old Latin name of this plant, and “thapsos” was the name of a yellow dye popular with the ancient Greeks. Dark Mullein, V. nigrum, is also fairly tall, up to 1.2 metres, hairy, but not woolly, and its flowers have distinctive dark red or purplish centres. The Hoary Mullein, V. pulverentulum (“dusty”), is smaller, but compensates by being many-branched like an ornamental candelabra. The rather splendid caterpillar shown in the photograph is that of the Mullein Moth, Cucullia verbasci and can be found feeding on mulleins from May to July.

Field Speedwell	Germander Speedwell

And last, and in one way least of the Figworts, come the Speedwells, a large family which is represented in the meadow by two of the smallest plants there. The little blue flowers have four petals of uneven sizes and in some species uneven colour. We have two speedwells in the meadow, the common Field Speedwell Veronica persica, and the brilliant germander Speedwell, V. chamaedrys. The scientific name of the second means, rather improbably, “ground oak” – perhaps a reference to the shape of the leaves, though not at all convincing! You can find out much more about speedwells and the legends associated with them if you go to the July 2008 edition of Meadow Muses.

An erect hairless perennial, 30-80cm tall, with long narrow leaves and dense, showy flower heads. The individual flowers are pale yellow, with a deeper yellow or orange lower lip, and are shaped like those of snapdragons, but with a long spur at the bottom of the flower. They are found across most of Europe and are common in England and Wales, growing on dry banks, meadow edges and wasteland, especially on sandy, gravelly and chalky soils, and flowering from June to September. The mouth of the flower is completely closed, only opening when a bee is able to force its way in, so it is only visited by large bees. These have long tongues, so they can reach the nectar, which is held in the spur. The orange part of the flower attracts bees, which can visit many flowers in a short time, efficiently transferring pollen between plants.

The scientific name Linaria is derived from the Latin linum meaning “flax”, as the leaves were thought to resemble flax leaves, and vulgaris means “common”. The origin of the common name Toadflax is uncertain – there have been a number of suggestions, including toads liking to shelter under the leaves, and the flowers resembling the wide mouths of toads.

There are many delightful alternative names, including Pattens and Clogs, Flaxweed, Ramsted, Snapdragon, Dragon Bushes, Churnstaff, Brideweed, Toad, Yellow Rod, Larkspur Lion’s Mouth, Devil’s Ribbon, Egg and Collops, Rabbits, Bunny Mouths, Pedlar’s Basket, Calves' Snout, Buttered Haycocks and Monkey Flower.

In folklore the flower was considered a herb of Pluto and associated with protection from witchcraft, useful for breaking hexes. There have been associations with the Virgin Mary, and it has sometimes been given such names as Mary’s Flax, Virgin’s Flax, Madonna’s Herb and Lady’s Slipper. It appears in the list of flower remedies as helpful in fostering independence and dealing with loneliness.

Medicinally it has been used to treat a wide range of conditions, including jaundice, liver problems, skin diseases, dropsy, sores, inflammation of the eyes and skin ulcers, while a tea made from toadflax was used to clean wounds.

In Sweden an old country custom was to steep the plant in milk, when the resulting infusion was said to keep away troublesome flies, and toadflax boiled in milk is said to be an effective fly poison. In Germany the flowers were used to obtain a yellow dye.