Linum catharticumL.

fairy flaxpurging flaxpurging flax, fairy flax

WFO wfo-0000363831 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Linum catharticum, photographed by Andreas Stiller
fig. a Andreas Stiller, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-13 / obs. 205790924
Linum catharticum, photographed by Pete Bradshaw
fig. b Pete Bradshaw, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205552768
Linum catharticum, photographed by evgeniq_benihanov
fig. c evgeniq_benihanov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205746097
Linum catharticum, photographed by Karen Fry
fig. d Karen Fry, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203021769
Linum catharticum, photographed by CorentinD
fig. e CorentinD, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203178735
Linum catharticum, photographed by Denys Vynokurov
fig. f Denys Vynokurov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201992096
Linum catharticum, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. g Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200562888
Linum catharticum, photographed by David Delon
fig. h David Delon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199177226

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
3725943
Filed as
Linum catharticum L.
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
not recorded
Origin
not recorded
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 42 botanical countries

Regions where Linum catharticum is native: Morocco, Iran, Iraq, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine MoroccoIranIraqNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIcelandIrelandItalyKrymNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine Føroyar
Native distribution of Linum catharticum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Iceland ICE
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Iran IRN ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iraq IRQ
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Morocco MOR AFRICA

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 426 in flower of 457 examined

Peak flowering in Nov. Each bar is the share of Linum catharticum observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 426 of 457 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 2,003 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -11.9 °C -2.1 °C 4.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 15.1 °C 20.3 °C 24.8 °C
Annual rainfall 602 mm 941 mm 2,012 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 101 mm 184 mm 374 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 2,003 research-grade observations of Linum catharticum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 12 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Cathartolinum catharticum (L.) Small
  • Cathartolinum catharticum subsp. suecicum (Murb. ex Hayek) Á.Löve
  • Cathartolinum catharticum subsp. suecicum (Hayek) Dostál
  • Cathartolinum pratense Rchb.
  • Linum catharticum f. bienne H.Lindb.
  • Linum catharticum f. conferta Murb.
  • Linum catharticum prol. subalpinum (Hausskn.) Asch.
  • Linum catharticum subsp. suecicum Hayek
  • Linum catharticum var. annuum H.Lindb. ex Hiitonen
  • Linum diversifolium Gilib.
  • Linum suecicum Murb. ex Hayek
  • Nezera cathartica (L.) Nieuwl.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.