Snapdragon

The common snapdragon is a herbaceous perennial, now placed in the family Plantaginaceae and usually grown as an annual or biennial, standing half a metre to a metre tall. Its flowers crowd a tall spike, each a tube closed by two lips that spring apart like a mouth when the sides are squeezed, which is how it got its name; wild plants flower pink to purple, often with yellow lips, while garden kinds run through red, orange, yellow, white and more. It is native from south-central France and the eastern Pyrenees to north-eastern Spain and the Balearic Islands, where it grows in crevices and walls, and after centuries in gardens it is naturalised on every continent but Antarctica. Grieve records its leaves laid on tumours and ulcers on the Continent and its old reputation as a guard against witchcraft, and botanists have used it as a model plant in genetics for nearly a century. Kynes tells of Dioscorides and Pliny recommending a bracelet of the flowers against illness and poison, of Irish snapdragons grown on thatched roofs for luck and against fire, and of its hoodoo use against evil spirits and ghosts. Cunningham calls it a masculine herb of Mars and fire for protection: worn, it keeps others from deceiving you, and flowers set before a mirror send curses back.