Squatting among the beach grass, plums, and roses that decorate the coastal bank bordering Wellfleet’s Mayo Beach is a colony of blue toadflax, a diminutive native wildflower whose beauty isn’t quite reflected in its name. Nuttallanthus canadensis, a short-lived plant that grows either as an annual or biennial and produces great quantities of seeds, is really toadish only in how, over time, it hops around. Take a glance at the flower this month, if you can: it’s a charming bloom for a spring peep.
