A Week of Weeds - Toadflax

Yellow "Common" Toadflax : Linaria vulgaris and Purple Toadflax: Linaria purpurea appear very similar as seedlings. But these siblings appear quite different when in flower.  The purple are at first glance a simple monotone purple spire, while the yellow offers a spike of individual flowers each twice the size of the purple ones and visibly displaying two pale yellow cowls atop two central deeper yellow bulges with a lower lip divided into three pale yellow parts. Add to this a long greenish spur at the back of the flower.  Purple toadflax's  flower lacks the two tone artifice and it's architecture is too small to be appreciated at a glance, but of the two it forms taller more dramatic clumps.  Yellow toadflax was probably introduced as a garden species before breaking out and travelling freely where it will.  You can see some nice pictures of the yellow flower at: Toadflax(Common)

Last year's growth and new seedlings

 The reason we tolerate both plants is because they are adored by bees.  They grow rather scruffily and are seldom the focal point for pictures.  I have dusted off a couple of snaps from last summer where purple toadflax does feature - in our shaded front garden bed:

Taken 16/5/18

Most of that greenery is toadflax!  And here is the same bed a month later with the toadflax now in flower:

The same bed 14/6/18 

We don't let it takeover completely but do tolerate it on account of the bees - and it does have some aesthetic value in its own right