Upright yellow flax
Linum strictum
Family · Linaceae · Harmless
The wild flax with small yellow flowers on stiff upright stems, filling dry scrub and limestone verges in spring. From the same family as spinning flax, but thin as wire.
Scrubland · Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Uplands
Also known asstiff flax
How to tell it
Very straight, stiff, almost unbranched stems with narrow pointed leaves, rough along the margin. Yellow five-petalled flowers that drop quickly. The whole habit is vertical and taut, which separates it from the blue flaxes.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
No use
The fibres are too fine to spin, unlike cultivated flax, and the seed is not used.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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