120 UNUM PERENNE. — PERENNIAL FLAX. 



ordinary Flax. This, however, is not all the distinction, nor 

 would it be regarded as in itself sufficient for botanical science 

 to build on, as, in the present condition of botanical knowledge, 

 so much importance is not attached to slight variations as there 

 was in old times. The native country of the common Flax, 

 Linum usitatissimum, is not known, and it is not at all im- 

 probable that it is only a form selected and used for cultiva- 

 tion. Flax has been grown for ages for its fibre, of which fine 

 linen fabrics arc made ; and in the twelfth chapter of Genesis, 

 we read that Pharaoh clothed Joseph in fine linen ; and again, 

 in the fourth chapter of Exodus, that, when the plagues came on 

 the Egyptians, the smiting of the Flax crops was one of them. 

 The plant mentioned in the Bible was formerly supposed to be 

 identical with the common Flax; but seed-vessels found in old 

 bricks and similar material from ancient Egypt show that the 

 Egyptian Flax was not the L. usitatissimum, but rather L. a : 

 tifolium, which is also a perennial species, and scarcely, if at all, 

 different from our 'Z. pcrcnue. There is, besides, another peren- 

 nial form, native to Eastern Asia, the L. pcrcnue Sibiricum, also 

 scarcely different ; and all this renders it highly probable that 

 the true Flax is a descendant of our species. An additional 

 proof that it may have had this origin is the fact that the com- 

 mon Flax varies remarkably in itself. At the American Cen- 

 tennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, a great number of varieties 

 came from Russia and Holland, differing as much among them- 

 selves as the whole, as a species differs from our perennial 

 Flax. The probable close connection of our plant with the 

 linen of the mummies and the literature of the ancient people 

 will give our plant a new interest in the eyes of the lover of 

 American wild flowers. 



Our plant seems first to make its appearance near the Mexi- 

 can boundary, whence it traverses the whole continent between 

 the Pacific and the Mississippi, extending through its several 

 varieties to Europe and Asia. 



