Plant
Snapdragon
Antirrhinum majus
Also known as: Antirrhinum majus
A perennial flowering plant in the family Plantaginaceae, native to the western Mediterranean (Spain, southern France, Italy, Morocco, Algeria). The flowers' distinctive structure — two paired 'lips' that snap open when squeezed, releasing the pollinator and snapping shut again — gives the common name. The flower has been a major subject of plant-genetics research for over a century; key contributions to understanding flower-color genetics and floral symmetry developmental genetics have come from *Antirrhinum* model organisms.
Scientific
Antirrhinum majus (family Plantaginaceae — historically classified in Scrophulariaceae, since reclassified). The flower has a bilateral-symmetric (zygomorphic) structure — two paired upper and lower lobes that form a closed “mouth” requiring a pollinator (usually a large bee) to physically push the lower lobe down to enter the flower.
The species is one of the principal plant-genetics model organisms. Key historical contributions:
- Erwin Baur’s foundational early-20th-century work on flower-color inheritance in Antirrhinum
- The discovery of transposable elements (jumping genes) in plants partly through work on Antirrhinum unstable color phenotypes
- More recent work on the developmental genetics of bilateral floral symmetry (the CYCLOIDEA gene was first identified in Antirrhinum)
Cultural
The “snapdragon” name comes from the flower’s distinctive squeezing mechanism — pinching the sides of an individual flower makes the two lobes snap open, then snap shut when released, with a vague resemblance to a small dragon’s mouth opening. Generations of children have discovered this property; it remains one of the few interactive ornamental flowers in common gardens.
The species has been an English cottage-garden staple for centuries. The intensity and range of available colors (white, yellow, orange, red, pink, magenta, deep purple, bicolor patterns) and the cut-flower performance (long-lasting in vases) have made snapdragons one of the most-produced cut flowers in temperate floriculture. Floricultural production is centered in the Netherlands, Israel, and [[berkeley|California]].
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Shares approach with: [[thyme]] · [[sweet-pea]] · [[savory]] · [[sage]] · [[rosemary]] · [[quince]]
- Member of: [[plants]]
Sources
- Wikipedia — Antirrhinum
A plant entry in the 0mn1.one [[directory]].
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