Linum compactumA.Nelson

Wyoming flax

WFO wfo-0001235614 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 4 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Linum compactum, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. a Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / 2018-06-15 / obs. 171966200
Linum compactum, photographed by tonyblake
fig. b tonyblake, CC0 1.0 / obs. 4176412
Linum compactum, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. c Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171966203
Linum compactum, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. d Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171966206
Linum compactum, photographed by Peter L Achuff
fig. e Peter L Achuff, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174277646
Linum compactum, photographed by Peter L Achuff
fig. f Peter L Achuff, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174277660
Linum compactum, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. g Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81472248
Linum compactum, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. h Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81472276

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.

Native range 14 botanical countries

Regions where Linum compactum is native: Alberta, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming AlbertaColoradoIllinoisKansasMissouriMontanaNebraskaNew MexicoNorth DakotaOklahomaSaskatchewanSouth DakotaTexasWyoming
Native distribution of Linum compactum, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
Colorado COL
Illinois ILL
Kansas KAN
Missouri MSO
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
New Mexico NWM
North Dakota NDA
Oklahoma OKL
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Texas TEX
Wyoming WYO

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 52 in flower of 54 examined

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Linum compactum 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. 52 of 54 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 9 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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.

Also published as 3 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 compactum (A.Nelson) Small
  • Linum rigidum var. compactum (A.Nelson) C.M.Rogers
  • Nezera compacta (A.Nelson) Lunell

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.