Species
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Linum lewisii Pursh

Blue Flax, Lewis flax, Lewis' blue flax, Lewis' flax

Climate known 68 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Linum lewisii is a perennial plant in the family Linaceae, native to western North America.

Text from Wikipedia, “Linum lewisii”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Linum

Linum (flax) is a genus of approximately 200 species in the flowering plant family Linaceae. They are native to temperate and subtropical regions of the world. The genus includes the common flax, the bast fibre of which is used to produce linen and the seeds to produce linseed oil.

Text from Wikipedia, “Linum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Linaceae
Described by
Pursh
Native to
Alaska, Nunavut, Northwest Territories +27
Wild records
1875 in range· 509 open

At a glance

Warmest month
26°C
Jul, mean day; nights 12 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
458mm/yr
12 wet months · peak May 50 mm (CHELSA)
Light
13–48DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to October in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 458 mm a year, wettest May at 50 mm, driest February at 30 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 48 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -25.1 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Adenolinum lewisii (Pursh) Á.Löve & D.Löve; Linum lewisii f. albiflorum (Cockerell) H.St.John; Linum lyallanum Alef.; Linum perenne f. albiflorum Cockerell; Linum perenne subsp. lewisii (Pursh) Hultén and 3 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to October in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (330 mm of 458 mm) takes 8 months, March to October. Mean temperature moves 24.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to April.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 458 mm a year, wettest May at 50 mm, driest February at 30 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

458 mm a year at the habitat, 330 mm of it March to October. Wettest month May at 50 mm, driest February at 30 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 319 mm to 1000 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 48 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 48 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 6, the highest 90th-percentile month 54).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -25.1 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -25.1 °C, the absolute minimum -40.2 °C, about 208 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 30.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -9.7 °C in December (across the envelope cells -16.0 °C to -2.3 °C), warmest day 26.1 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -25.1 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 49 to 58% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from -0 °C in Dec to 26 °C in Jul; mean night from -10 °C in Dec to 12 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Nov to Jan, is the three months around the coldest night. 458 mm of rain a year, most in May. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1287 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -40.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 30.4 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-60°-40°-20°20°40°frost30.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)-40.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125mm rainDLI 13–48RH 49–58 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1287 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C0 / -7–92 / -5–106 / 0–1412 / 5–1817 / 10–2322 / 17–2826 / 20–3125 / 20–3021 / 15–2614 / 8–205 / -1–13-0 / -7–8
Night °C-10 / -17–-3-9 / -15–-1-5 / -11–1-1 / -7–44 / -2–99 / 3–1412 / 7–1712 / 7–178 / 3–132 / -4–7-5 / -11–2-10 / -16–-2
Rain mm32 / 13–11230 / 11–10736 / 18–9936 / 18–8050 / 15–8745 / 11–9146 / 12–8543 / 14–8738 / 17–7036 / 20–7632 / 15–10134 / 13–119
DLI16 / 8–2222 / 15–2832 / 24–3840 / 34–4645 / 39–5148 / 41–5447 / 41–5242 / 35–4735 / 26–3925 / 16–3117 / 9–2413 / 6–20
RH %57 / 49–6657 / 50–6455 / 48–6053 / 44–5752 / 41–5550 / 38–5649 / 40–5650 / 41–5650 / 43–5652 / 45–5856 / 47–6358 / 49–67

Each figure is the median across the 1287 grid cells holding the 1802 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 805:1194 (49.725, -120.275). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -40.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -25.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 30.4 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1287 distinct grid cells holding the 1802 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 805:1194 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 49.50_-120.000, lapse-corrected +28 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1262 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeAlaska, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest· introduced: Québec, Missouri, West Virginia, Louisiana
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker39.703, -105.169 · in the densest population, 717 records (38% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1875 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 509 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 420 km away. 3 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 73 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1875 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Linum lewisiiLinum lewisiiLinum lewisiiLinum lewisiiLinum lewisiiLinum lewisiiLinum lewisiiLinum lewisii

Photographs: (c) Bob Walker, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Brian Finzel, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (5); no rights reserved · CC0.

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Linum lewisii, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

SOIL FUNGI ALTER INTERACTIONS BETWEEN THE INVADER CENTAUREA MACULOSA AND NORTH AMERICAN NATIVES
Ragan M. Callaway, Giles C. Thelen, Sara Regina Barth, Philip W. Ramsey (2004) · Ecology
Anthophilous Fly Distribution Across an Elevation Gradient
Carol Ann Kearns (1992) · The American Midland Naturalist
Fly pollination of Linum lewish (Linaceae)
Carol Ann Kearnsaf, David W. Inouye (1994) · American Journal of Botany
Antagonistic interactions between competition and insect herbivory on plant growth
Joshua J. Haag, Malcolm D. Coupe, James F. Cahill (2004) · Journal of Ecology
Fly Pollination of Linum lewisii (Linaceae)
Carol Ann Kearns, David W. Inouye (1994) · American Journal of Botany
Understory Species Response to Utah Juniper Litter
Chad S. Horman, Val Jo Anderson (2003) · Journal of Range Management
Effects of Road Dust on the Pollination and Reproduction of Wildflowers
Nickolas M. Waser, Mary V. Price, Genesis Casco, M. Villalba Diaz (2016) · International Journal of Plant Sciences
Predicting the effects of climate change on the cross-scale epidemiological dynamics of a fungal plant pathogen
Ian Miller, Juliana Jiranek, Mckenna Brownell, Sarah M. Coffey (2022) · Scientific Reports

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Linum 3 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 101 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.