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Perennial of the Plantaginaceae family, native to Western and Central Europe, present in France, Spain, Great Britain and up to Central Europe. It colonizes dry lawns, calcareous slopes, rocky areas, roadsides and open stony grounds, from the plain to the lower montane level.
It forms loose clumps with erect or ascending stems, from 30 to 80 cm, arising from creeping rhizomes which give it its name. The foliage is fine, linear, glaucous, arranged in whorls on the sterile stems. The flowers are its most remarkable feature: cream white to very pale lilac, almost white, they are finely striped with lilac-violet veins on the lips, with a well-visible orange-yellow spot on the palate of the lower lip. This veined pattern, discreet and precise, gives them a particular elegance that uniformly colored toadflaxes do not possess.
In its natural habitat, its flowering extends from June to September. In cultivation, it is similar with a slight advance possible depending on the exposure.
It is cultivated in full sun or light partial shade, in well-drained soil, preferably calcareous. Hardy and undemanding, it gradually spreads by its rhizomes and is better suited to large naturalized rock gardens, calcareous slopes or dry lawns than to carefully arranged rock compositions where its tendency to spread could pose a problem.