The snapdragon, Antirrhinum majus, is a Mediterranean garden flower whose common name records a piece of play: pinch the sides of the tubular bloom and its two lips open and close like a small mouth or a dragon's jaws. Its botanical name means nose-like, from the shape of the flower, and after the petals fall the dry seed-pod is left looking startlingly like a tiny human skull, a feature that fed the plant's darker folklore. It is an old cottage-garden flower, valued for its bright spikes and its curious snapping bloom.
Beyond the garden, Antirrhinum majus has a significant place in the history of modern genetics: it was one of the classic model plants used in early twentieth-century studies of Mendelian inheritance, and more recently the discovery in snapdragon of the CYCLOIDEA gene, which controls the symmetry of the flower, became a foundational finding in the field of evolutionary developmental biology, an entirely secular scientific legacy running alongside the plant's much older reputation as a charm against deceit. Wild snapdragon populations across the Mediterranean also show a remarkable range of flower colour controlled by a well-studied set of genes, making the plant a continuing reference point for research into how flower colour evolves in the wild rather than only in the laboratory.
Sources Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors with Plants of the World OnlineRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew