Narbonne flax
Linum narbonense
Family · Linaceae · Harmless
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The wild flax with large blue flowers that lights up limestone banks in May. Each flower lasts a morning and falls, but the plant opens more every day for weeks.
Scrubland · Uplands · Roadsides and waste ground · Fields and pasture
Also known asblue flax, beautiful flax
How to tell it
Bright blue or blue-violet flowers three to four centimetres across, with five overlapping petals and darker veins. Narrow, pointed, bluish alternate leaves along thin stems. Much larger and showier than the yellow flax.
What it is confused with
Upright yellow flax
Linum strictum
Colour settles it: large and blue here, small and yellow on the other. Both harmless.
Open sheet →What it is for
No use, unlike cultivated flax. It is a garden plant in some varieties and, in the field, one of the prettiest blue flowers you find without looking.