Texas toadflax is charming plant that is blooming now in several parts of our yard. I hate to call Nuttallanthus texanus a weed, but it sure does like disturbed areas. I also hate to call it toadflax or Nuttalanthus (no offense, Thomas Nuttall), but I suppose a name is a name.
As a ruderal this annual has carpeted a bare patch in our orchard, and I’m finding it in overgrown beds in the vegetable patch. Anytime I find it in my garden beds I leave it as it adds a cheerful and wild essence to the planting.
I also leave it for insects. The North American Butterfly Association states that it is a great early-season resource for pollinators, and the foliage serves as food for Common Buckeye larvae.
If you get close, you can appreciate the flower’s interesting morphology—a pair of lips for petals, and a spur on the back of the flower. The sea of baby blue blooms—each flower no bigger than your pinky fingernail—seem to appear over night. And, as quick bloomers, they are gone before you know it, too.