knightericm's Identifications

Bastrop County, Texas; McKinney Roughs
4/19/2023
Linum imbricatum

Patch of plants in light colored sandy soil which seems to have accumulated on a flat part of the mostly downhill Bluff Trail Loop. Distinguished from L. hudsonioides (which occurs in the nearby uplands of the park) by the ciliate margins found on some upper leaves. It was quite difficult to see the ciliate margins. With a 10x loop I could only see what might have been ciliate margins, but also could have been hairs on the adjacent stem. With a 30x pocket microscope, I could see that there were ciliate margins on at least some of the upper leaves (midstem and upwards), but it did not appear that all the margins were ciliate. Photography of these minute cilia was also difficult since I could never tell if they were in focus and they did not respond well to the direct light of the onboard flash.

I arrived at these plants early in the afternoon and within about 45 minutes almost all of the petals had fallen (or popped off in a ring), as they tend to do in these species.

Plants were up to about 11cm. Petal lobes (measured from top center in flower) were about 8mm.

Found this patch based on this recent observation:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/155017445

A last note. Although all the plants within about a 5 meter radius appeared to be L. imbricatum, there was an isolated individual in the taller vegetation about 20-30m away which appeared to be L. hudsonioides.