# Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris)

*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

## 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.

## What does modern science say?

Some modern research supports mild diuretic and fever-reducing activity; the plant is mildly toxic to grazing animals.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **peganine (vasicine)**: a quinazoline alkaloid
- **linarin**: a flavone glycoside
- **antirrhinoside**: an 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.

**Dose.** Safe at tea doses; the alkaloid contracts the uterus in animals.

**Standing.** No monograph; a weed of the herbals.

## 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.

## 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*.”
- Culpeper, N. (1653). *The Complete Herbal*, “Flax-Weed, Or Toad-Flax.” Project Gutenberg #49513.
- Wichtl, M. (2004). *Herbal Drugs and Phytopharmaceuticals*, 3rd ed.

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*Toadflax.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/toadflax

Historical description, not medical advice.