FLAX FAMILY. Linaceae. 
green foliage, the thickish, resinous leaflets very small, in 
pairs, with almost no leaf-stalk, and uneven at base. The 
pretty flowers are nearly an inch across, with bright yellow 
petals, with claws, and silky, greenish-yellow sepals which 
soon drop off. The filaments are broadened below into 
wings and have a scale on the inner side. The ovary is 
covered with pale, silky hairs, so that the older flowers 
have a silky tuft in the center, and becomes a round, 
densely hairy fruit, with a short stalk, tipped with the 
slender style. These little white, silky balls of down are 
very conspicuous and, as they are mingled with yellow 
flowers, the bush has an odd and pretty effect of being 
spotted all over with yellow and white. 
FLAX FAMILY. Lvinaceae. 
A small family, widely distributed in temperate and 
tropical regions. Ours are smooth herbs, with loosely 
clustered, complete flowers, having five sepals; five petals, 
alternating with the sepals; five stamens, alternating with 
the petals, with swinging anthers and filaments united at 
the base; ovary superior; fruit a capsule, containing eight 
or ten, oily seeds. 
There are many kinds of Flax, sometimes shrubby at 
base; with tough fibers in the bark; leaves without stipules, 
sometimes with glands at base in place of real stipules; 
flowers mostly blue or yellow. There are numerous, small- 
flowered, annual kinds, difficult to distinguish and usually 
somewhat local. JL. usitatissimum, an annual, with deep 
blue flowers, is the variety which, from time immemorial, 
has furnished the world with linen from its fiber and oil 
from its seeds. Linum is the ancient Latin name. 
An attractive plant, from one to two 
Blue Flax : : 
Linum Lewisii 1eet tall, with several, erect stems, spring- 
Blue ing from a woody, perennial root, with 
Spring, summer numerous, small, narrow, bluish-green 
iar gap Aagaiae leaves and loose clusters of pretty flowers, 
each about an inch across. The petals, delicately veined 
with blue, vary in tint from sky-blue to almost white, 
with a little yellow at the base. This is common and 
widely distributed, from Manitoba to Texas and westward, 
but the fiber is not strong enough to be used commercially. 
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