Bastard Toadflax
There are very few plants out there that require or deserve such a rude descriptor .It begs the question: why should the western botanists and ecologists of yesteryear have stooped so low to childish name calling? Is it projection or anthropomorphism? Is it literal, is this an illegitimate plant? Or is it figurative, is this plant an asshole?
What do you know of the northern bastard toadflax? You’ll certainly find it in among the spruce above the streets of Dawson, as well on the 9th avenue trail. Have you seen it? I promise you, if you have ever walked anywhere in a northern boreal forest, you’ve at the very least glanced at it. If you’ve tramped the northern woods anywhere across the continent, from Newfoundland, to Alaska, you’ve walked past it countless times. Maybe while exploring, you’ve even thought , “Wow, those little fluorescent orange berries must be poisonous as hell. I wonder what they are?”.
Well, let me introduce you. Dear reader, this is Geocaulon Lividum, more commonly known as Northern Bastard Toadflax. An hermaphroditic, hemi-parasitic, forb.
Enchanté
With a bit of a closer inspection I‘m sure you’ll find that this seemingly unassuming forb, (which is a delightful new name I've recently discovered, meaning an herbaceous flowering plant that is not a grass) hardly deserves its pernicious moniker. It’s not even close to being a toadflax at all!
Toadflax is an english colloquial name from the 15th century referring to plants belonging to the Plantaginaceae family. These are more akin to wild snapdragons, a Yukon example of which is ‘butter and eggs’. Our new friend here belongs to the completely different Santalaceae, or Sandalwood family, similar to mistletoe. Obviously, tradition and songs about kissing under the bastard toadflax are probably a long ways off, but that hardly changes the fact that they look not a goddamn thing like a snapdragon
The unfortunate thing about the members of the sandalwood family is that they are all just a wee bit parasitic, and that can be a bit of a turn off. Our little friend gets a good amount of energy from the photosynthesis of its own green leaves, but it also lives way down on the ground in the shadow of big spruce trees. Sometimes it’s a little short, and needs to borrow a little from its neighbors. Some might say this mooching gives it a bit of a creepy vibe, but it's not a vibe. It’s just little creeping rhizomes underground which attach to the roots of…. Well pretty much anything from spruce, to alder, or even to blueberry bushes.
It should be noted that this arrangement hardly affects it’s so-called “host” plant at all. Just borrowing a cup of nutrients here and there in exchange for a bit of ground cover. No big deal, right?
Well…”There are a few bad apples out there, which I’m sure have not helped the unfortunate name and reputation of this otherwise delightful plant. The thing is, sometimes Bastard Toadflax can be a host itself for a lousy little fungus known as “Blister Rust”. Again, not a name that inspires happy thoughts.
It starts in the leaves of our new friend, and everything seems cool, because the only thing it really does is cause discolorations and nifty tiger-like patterns. Sadly, it’s not finished there. This obnoxious fungus also creeps through those creeping rhizomes, and thereby happens to find its way into biology of whatever kindly unsuspecting neighbour has been lending out its energy to the bastard toadflax.
You’ve probably seen the result of this unfortunate relationship in the bows of black and white spruce in a big gnarly growth known as a “Witch's Broom”. At first instance, one of these may look like a nest, high up the tree, or maybe just a misgrown clumpy section of branches. If you look closely however, you’ll notice that the clump of branches is actually just a poor mimic and it is actually just another stage of the Blister Rust manifesting as a growth, drawing quite a bit more than just a simple cup of nutrients from its host.
Also, the Witch’s Broom smells. Maybe on one of your strolls through a sunny spruce forest you’ve noticed a strange sickly sweet aroma you can’t quite put your finger on. Yeahhhhh, that is the Witch’s Broom stinkin’ up the joint.
Ok, ok, so sometimes our new friend leaves the back door open and a smelly bad guy sneaks in. Still, unless it were trees who were responsible for the naming, that’s still hardly a reason to label it a bastard. It’s not as if it kills the tree, and those Brooms actually do make good nests for birds, and the smell…. Well it’s an acquired smell, let’s say.
The point is, none of this would have been known by western ecologists when they “discovered” it anyway. Whoever gave it such a hurtful english name must have just been having a lousy day, and done so out of some misdirected spite.
That said, though it is nice enough, and a perfectly legitimate member of the Sandalwood family, the only other thing is It’s...well, it’s not a particularly useful plant to humans.
That particular characteristic is highlighted in the names usually given to it in the many Indigenous languages across the continent. Though they at least were able to see its wider value to the ecology of the environment as a whole, it was still often dismissed with names that translated as belonging to an animal, indicating it wasn’t really for humans. Usually it’s Indigenous name translates to fox’s, mouse’s, or raven’s berry, or something in that vein.
Speaking of berries, it did have some occasional medical uses. Each plant’s siglaur bright orange berry would sometimes be chewed as a stomach or sore throat remedy, though it seems that universally that it wasn’t usually a first choice.
The berry of the Bastard Toadflax is actually a drupe, and although something that incredibly bright orange seems like it absolutely must be poisonous, when ripe, it actually contains more sugar than a blueberry. The joke is of course, that it ranges from tasteless to utterly unpalatable to humans.
You know what? Maybe it is just a little bit of a jerk. Bumming nutrients from all the other plants, letting stinky fungus run amok, tempting everyone with its orange-that-shouldn’t-be-found-in-nature little berry, being all full of sugar but we can't really eat it cause it’s gross. What other plant has such a nihilistic agenda and sardonic sense of humor?
It’s certainly not a toadflax, but I guess maybe it is a bit of a bastard.
Honestly, I think it only adds to its charm.
For more information on the names of boreal plants and their etymology, I encourage you to continue developing your knowledge of Yukon flora by discovering the “Good-For-Nothing Twinflower, the ‘Sonofabitch Northern Dandelion’, the ‘Idiot Cranberry’, and the ‘Piece-Of-Shit Red Alder’
