Appearance
Sprinkled with 5-petaled flowers of a light true blue, Blue Flax is a short-lived perennial with graceful, wiry stems sporting blue-green needle-like leaves. Plants reach two feet in height.
L. perenne originated in Eurasia. The very similar native American species, Linum lewisii (sometimes considered a subspecies of L. perenne), was named in honor of Meriwether Lewis, the first European to discover and describe the plant. Both are frequently included in wildflower mixes and used for erosion control. You can see them both growing alongside highways in the Pikes Peak area.