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 Flowers And Plants - Natures Garden: Wild or American Senna Wild Indigo; Yellow or Indigo Broom; Horsefly-Weed Rattle-Box Yellow or Hop Clover Wild or Slender Yellow Flax Jewel-weed; Spotted Touch-me-not; Silver Cap; Wild Balsam ; Lady's Eardrops ; Snap Weed; Wild Lady's Slipper Velvet Leaf; Indian Mallow; American Jute St. Andrew's Cross Common St. John's-wort Long-branched Frost-weed ; Frost-flower; Frost-wort; Canadian Rock-rose Read More Articles On Flowers |
( Originally Published 1916 ) Wild or Slender Yellow Flax (Linum Virginianum) Flax family Flowers—Yellow, about in. across, each from a leaf axil, scattered along the slender branches. Sepals, 5 ; 5 petals, 5 stamens. Stem : 1 to 2 ft. high, branching, leafy. Leaves : Alternate, seated on the stem; small, oblong, or lance-shaped, 1 nerved. Preferred Habitat—Dry woodlands and borders ; shady places. Flowering Season—June—August. Distribution—New England to Georgia. Certainly in the Atlantic States this is the commonest of its slender, dainty tribe ; but in bogs and swamps farther southward and westward to Texas the Ridged Yellow Flax (L. striatum), with leaves arranged opposite each other up to the branches and an angled stem so sticky it "adheres to paper in which it is dried," takes its place. " Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax," wrote Longfellow, as if blue flax were a familiar sight on this side of the Atlantic. The charming little European plant (L. usitatissimum), which has furnished the fibre for linen and the oily seeds for poultices from time immemorial, is only a fugitive from cultivation here. Unhappily, it is rarely met with along the roadsides and railways as it struggles to gain a foothold in our waste places. Possibly Longfellow had in mind the blue toad flax. |
