blue flax

Noun

blue flax (plural blue flaxes)

1. Linum lewisii, native to North America; Lewis flax or prairie flax.
   • We made our halt at noon in a fertile bottom, where the common blue flax was growing abundantly, a few miles below the mouth of Thomas’s fork, one of the larger tributaries of the river.1845, J[ohn] C[harles] Frémont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843-’44, Washington: Gales and Seaton...
   • But if the animals are few the flowers are plentiful, especially in the open glades and along the brook, where I find clusters of larkspur, blue flax and Sego lilies.1968, Edward Abbey, “Tukuhnikivats, the Island in the Desert”, in Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, McGraw-Hill; republished New York: Touchstone, 1968, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 222
2. Linum narbonense.
3. Linum perenne; lint.