Cruising around the web, I came across a magnificent specimen of Linum kingii in the Wasatch Mountains, taken by John Perkins, a native Massachusetts gardener and Rhododendron expert. In "fair use" to have one photo to liven up this page, I post John Perkin's excellent photo (thanks John!). To see the rest of John's PicasaWeb photo gallery, click the 2nd link below.
Linum kingii in the Wasatch Mountains, Utah, showy specimen:
http://picasaweb.google.com/John.A.Perkins/WasatchMountains#503006264689...
...John Perkins' Picasaweb photo gallery on plants of the Wasatch Mts, Utah:
https://picasaweb.google.com/John.A.Perkins/WasatchMountains#
Linum kingii, very nice looking plants, again in the Wasatch Mts, Utah
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryanto/3809802267/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryanto/3810616318/in/photostream/
I've been aware of this species for some time, but known only from photos that depict scrawny little plants with pale yellow thin-textured flowers, not too exciting. On the USDA plant profile pages below, I notice two varieties are put into synonymy with the species, var. pinetorum and var. sedoides. When I look at various photos, it almost seems like I'm look at completely different species; could it be that the taxonomists acted rashly in voiding the varieties? Some forms look like superb candidates for the rock garden.
USDA Plant Profile page & distribution map
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=LIKI2
...photo, tiny twiggy looking plant, pale yellow
http://plants.usda.gov/java/largeImage?imageID=liki2_002_ahp.tif
Linum kingii var. sedoides, Rocky Mountain Rare Plants
http://www.rmrp.com/Photo%20Pages/LL/Linum%20kingii%20v%20sedoides%20100...
Linum kingii on CalPhotos
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?where-genre=Plant&where-taxo...
L. kingii, [i] and others:
http://www.wildgingerfarm.com/Linum.htm
L. kingii, lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, not so attractive:
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=LIKI2
http://www.wildflower.org/gallery/result.php?id_image=174
Linum rigidum, an annual species with yellow-orange flowers:
http://www.alplains.com/images/LinumRigidum.jpg
