Overview
Carter’s flax (Linum carteri var. carteri) is a 1-foot-tall, annual herb with five bright yellow-orange petals growing in Florida’s pine rocklands ecosystem of the Miami Rock Ridge.
Threats
Carter’s flax faces several challenges. Urban development and agricultural expansion threaten its habitat, while inadequate fire management disrupts its natural cycle. Invasive plants, climate change climate change
Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale.
Learn more about climate change , and rising sea levels further imperil this species. The pine rocklands it calls home are a globally imperiled ecosystem.
Scientific Name
Identification Numbers
Characteristics
Habitat
Carter’s flax thrives in dry pine rocklands and in disturbed areas with rockland soils.
Life Cycle
Carter’s flax is an annual.
The flower structure, where anthers are unusually close to the stigma, suggests that self-pollination may play a disproportionate role in its reproduction. Bees and butterflies also likely pollinate flowers.
Physical Characteristics
Carter's flax is 1 foot tall with slender leaves with minute glands at the base and bright yellow-orange petals that open in the morning and shed by mid-day. It has smooth, narrowly wing-angled stems, narrow leaves, and round capsule-like fruits, the sepals of which are deciduous at maturity.
Similar Species
All other species of Linum in Florida have distinct 5-part styles and fruits with persistent sepals.. Piriqueta (Piriqueta cistoides subsp. caroliniana) has similar, but paler yellow flowers with hairy sepals and flower stalks, and distinctly fringed stigmas; its leaves are narrow and alternate but lack red glands.
Geography
This species is exclusive to the higher, drier pine rocklands of the central and northern portions of the Miami Rock Ridge in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Timeline
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