Linaceae, Flax Family. 
Ours perennial herbs with alternate entire sessile leaves, without 
stipules, flowers showy, perfect, regular, 4-6 parted, Sepals 5, imbricate, 
persistent. Petals 5, convolute in the bad, early deciduous. Stamens 
joined at the base, Pistil 1, with superior ovary or usually 5 united 
carpels, Fruit an incompletely 1l-chambered capsule opening dovm the 
septad by twice as many valves (10) as there are carpels. 
Linum (Tourn.) L. 
Characters as abovee 
1. L. Lewisii Purshe Blue Flax, Stems slender, 60-70 cm, tall, branching 
only above, the branches nearly erect, the herbage glabrous and glaucous 
throughout; leaves linear, 1.5-5 cm, long, 2-3 mn. wide; flowers borne 
on slender vedicels 1-2 cm. long in the uppermost axils; sepals ovatee> = 
rotund, 5 mm, long, the margins thin§ petals blue, obovate, wedge-shaped, 
15-18 mm, long; stamens 10-12 mm. long; capsule twice the length of the 
persistent clasping sepals, globose. 
Occasional at higher elevations on rocky outcrops. Upper Priest Re, 
4300 fte, Anderson; rend Oreille R,, Iyall. One of the best known of the 
western wild flowers, it bears the name of its first collector, Capt. 
Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Exp., 1804-06. 
“a, 
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