39 



N. Ord. LINAGES. Lindl., Veg. K., p. 485 ; Le Maout & Dec., 



p. 293; Baill., Hist., pi. v. 

 Tribe LinecB. 



Genus Linum, Linn* B. & H., Gen., i, p. 242; Baill., 1. c., 

 p. 42. Species 80 or more, natives of either hemisphere, 

 and chiefly extra- tropical. 



39. Linum usitatissimum, Linn., Sp. PL, ed. I, p. 277 (1753). 

 Flax. Cultivated Flax. 



Figures. Woodville, t. 202; Steph. & Ch., t. 61; Nees, t. 389; Hayne, 

 viii, 1. 17 ; Berg & Sch., 1. 18 e ; Curt., PI. Lond., fasc. 5 ; Syme, E. B., 

 ii, t, 292 ; Baillon, 1. c., figs. 6975. 



Description. A stiff, upright annual, about 1 2 feet high; 

 stem usually solitary, cylindrical, quite smooth, green, corym- 

 bosely branched in the upper part. Leaves alternate, sessile, 

 linear-lanceolate, attenuate at each end, f li inch long, entire, 

 smooth, faintly ribbed. Flowers solitary at the ends of the 

 branches. Sepals 5, imbricate, ovate, with attenuated points ; 

 outer ones narrower, strongly 3-nerved, margins broadly mem- 

 branous. Petals 5, twisted, large, fugaceous, shortly clawed, 

 veined, deep violet-blue, slightly crenate at the margin. Stamens 

 5, alternate with the petals, the filaments more or less connected 

 into a short tube at the base, with 5 abortive or rudimentary 

 stamens (staminodes) alternating with them ; anthers small, 

 versatile, dark blue. Ovary flask-shaped, 5-celled at the base, 

 w ith a thick axis ; ovules 2 in each cell, collateral, attached to the 

 upper part of the axis; styles 5, distinct. Fruit capsular, surrounded 

 at the base by the persistent sepals, globose, with a sharp-pointed 

 apex, smooth, imperfectly 10-celled ; pericarp thin, tough, papery, 

 splitting septicidally into its component carpels and partially down 

 the back of each carpel through the spurious partitions formed 

 between the pairs of seeds. Seeds | 5 of an inch long, flat- 

 tened-ovoid, with rounded edges and an oblique blunt beak at the 



* Linum, the classical name. 



