Linum heterostylum

Linum heterostylum, commonly known as wild flax, is a resprouting perennial reaching 60 cm in height.

The simple, narrow leaves are opposite to subopposite, stalkless, hairless and ascending, sometimes close to the stem. They are 10 mm long and up to 3 mm wide.

The five-petalled, yellow flowers grow on erect stalks in stem-tip racemes, not lasting long. The flowers are about 15 mm in diameter. The green or purplish-grey calyces have five narrowly pointed lobes against the bases of the petals with small glands along the sepal margins.

The five stamens of each flower are united at the filament bases, the oblong anthers two-lobed. The ovary has five locules and five styles united lower down. The stigmas are borne higher than the anthers.

Flowering happens from late spring to after midautumn.

The fruits are dehiscent, ovoid capsules.

The species distribution is in the Western Cape from Worcester and Bredasdorp to the Little Karoo and Riversdale. The photo was taken on the Minwater farm near Oudtshoorn.

The habitat is fynbos and renosterveld on limestone, loam and sandstone slopes and flats. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).