Toadflax
Butter and eggs; bunny mouths, lion’s mouth, impudent lawyer, devil’s flax, wild snapdragon
- Known today as
- Linaria vulgaris. “Butter and eggs,” a wild relative of the snapdragon with two-toned yellow, spurred flowers.
- Kind
- Plant, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- peganine (vasicine), linarin, antirrhinoside
- Earliest authority here
- Culpeper (1616–1654)
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search
Revised October 1, 2026: An older authority added from a text read in full. Version 1, first published September 27, 2026.
Toadflax: what was it used for?
A tea of the leaves taken as a laxative and diuretic and for jaundice and dropsy; an ointment or tea applied to complaints of the skin and to hemorrhoids.
Toadflax: what does modern science say?
Some modern research supports mild diuretic and fever-reducing activity; the plant is mildly toxic to grazing animals.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- peganine (vasicine)a quinazoline alkaloid
- linarin ChEMBLa flavone glycoside
- antirrhinoside ChEMBLan iridoid
- Mechanism
- Peganine is the bronchodilator alkaloid of the Indian Adhatoda vasica, and the leaf is a mild expectorant and laxative for it; the ointment for haemorrhoids was astringent. Nothing in it acts on the liver.
- Toxic dose
- Safe at tea doses; the alkaloid contracts the uterus in animals.
- Standing
- No monograph; a weed of the herbals.
- Wichtl, M. (2004). Herbal Drugs and Phytopharmaceuticals, 3rd ed. Verified against its record · doi:10.1021/np030752h
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Toadflax: what lore surrounds it?
Its many folk names, bunny mouths, lion’s mouth, impudent lawyer, devil’s flax, and wild snapdragon, mostly describe the way the flower snaps open like a mouth when squeezed at the sides.
Toadflax: what did the older authorities say?
- Culpeper
- Calls it Flax-weed, with “pale yellow flowers, of a strong unpleasant scent, with deeper yellow mouths.” “Mars owns the herb: In Sussex we call it Gallwort, and lay it in our chicken's water to cure them of the gall; it relieves them when they are drooping.” It is “frequently used to spend the abundance of those watery humours by urine which cause the dropsy”; the decoction in wine “opens obstructions of the liver, and helps the yellow jaundice,” and the juice or distilled water dropped into the eyes “is a certain remedy for all heat, inflammation, and redness in them.”
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Linaria vulgaris.” Book, not indexed
- Culpeper, N. (1653). The Complete Herbal, “Flax-Weed, Or Toad-Flax.” Project Gutenberg #49513. Primary text
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the fifty-entry sample
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full
- Sources
- 3 cited: 1 verified against its record, 1 primary text, 1 book, not indexed.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 27, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“Toadflax.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/toadflax.
- MLA
“Toadflax.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/toadflax. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Toadflax. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/toadflax
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See Also
Sharing antirrhinoside
Also in Nicholas Culpeper
Tormentil in Nicholas Culpeper · Tansy in Nicholas Culpeper · Valerian in Nicholas Culpeper · Southernwood in Nicholas Culpeper · everything Nicholas Culpeper names →
Drawing on the same sources: Wikipedia, Culpeper, Wichtl
Unicorn’s horn · Toad · Viper · Tamarind · Agrimony · Speedwell · Betony · the bibliography →
Nearby in the alphabet
Toadstone (Lepidotes, believed to come from a toad’s head) · Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) · Tinder fungus (A hoof-shaped bracket of birch and beech) · Tongue stones (called tongue-stones, and by the Germans adders’ tongues) · Thyme (T) · The thurible
Historical description, not medical advice.