Lewis flax

Linum lewisii · Linaceae · all Linum records · also called Wild Blue Flax · Wikipedia

Fire-resistant. Recommended by 2 independent evidence lineages — including direct fire testing — with no objection on record across 7 cited sources. This status is computed from the cited evidence by the published rule, never hand-assigned. The page keeps its cited source rows visible for readers and separates each evidence channel from the computed result on this record.

▲ Greenstrips: Another Tool to Manage Wildfire ▲ the Idaho Firewise field scores · fire-tested

Computed class: Fire-resistant (consensus) — derived from the cited evidence by a published rule, never hand-assigned. Each chip above is one independent primary-evidence lineage and its direction. No plant is fireproof; condition and placement govern. Zone 0 is hardscape regardless.

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

On linum lewisii, Linum lewisii cites on list recommendation. Linum lewisii then against Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants for lewisii. The citations do not collapse on linum lewisii. Linum lewisii keeps on list with Ignition Resistant Landscape for lewisii.

On linum lewisii, Linum lewisii also carries native and introduced range both cited for lewisii.

Use evidence on linum lewisii for lewisii. Use range on linum lewisii for lewisii. Linum lewisii keeps the sourced table for lewisii.

Form: perennial
Mature height: ~2 ft
Water need: low
Rated in: Black Hills, South Dakota; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Fremont County, Wyoming; Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California +3

On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
Fire ecology context
Placement evidence: 6 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Black Hills, South Dakota; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Fremont County, Wyoming; Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California; New Mexico; Northern Nevada / Great Basin; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Maintenance

Typed publication scope: 6 scopes across 6 cited fire sources

Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) · Official scoped edition
- CO; partial normalized coverage · 2025-07-01
  Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.
Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills · Official scoped edition
- Black Hills (SD footprint); partial normalized coverage
  The page explicitly limits itself to the Black Hills, and NFPA Firewise's archived 2006 plant-list index files it under South Dakota. FireApproved publishes 47 exact genus or species owners from 48 printed rows. This is bounded Black Hills context, not statewide South Dakota coverage or a finding that a plant suits a particular site.
Fremont County Firewise Plant List · Official scoped edition
- Fremont County (WY footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-02-25
  The source identifies itself as the Fremont County Firewise Plant List. FireApproved publishes its 92 exact source owners as Fremont County regional context. No methodology, current county endorsement, statewide Wyoming scope, or site-specific suitability is inferred.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database · Official scoped edition
- Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08
  The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico · Official scoped edition
- NM; partial normalized coverage · 2003-10-08
  New Mexico Forestry Division publishes this as its FireWise Plant List for New Mexico. FireApproved accounts for all 140 printed rows and publishes 95 exact same-rank owners already represented in the directory; 29 exact taxa without an existing record, 14 unresolved spellings or higher-rank matches, one compound taxon cell, and one species row whose only apparent owner has an infraspecific printed identity remain held. Every published row retains the source's Y, N, ?, or blank elevation cells. Publication scope does not erase those elevation limits or establish suitability for every New Mexico site.
Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity (Ed. Bulletin 06-01) · Official scoped edition
- Lake Tahoe Basin (CA, NV footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2006-01-01
  Nevada Division of Forestry and University of Nevada Cooperative Extension publish Bulletin 06-01 for the Lake Tahoe Basin and vicinity. FireApproved publishes 83 exact rated owners as basin context across Nevada and California. Rough estimates are not statewide or site ratings.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, ID, KS, LA, MI, MN, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, TX, UT, WA, WV, WY.
Native range: Current cited native range in AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, ID, KS, MN, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, TX, UT, WA, WY.
Introduced / established: 3 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 3a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

20

exact source areas

Current introduced

3

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

20 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Alaska (AK)
Arkansas (AR)
Arizona (AZ)
California (CA)
Colorado (CO)
Idaho (ID)
Kansas (KS)
Minnesota (MN)
Montana (MT)
North Dakota (ND)
Nebraska (NE)
New Mexico (NM)
Nevada (NV)
Oklahoma (OK)
Oregon (OR)
South Dakota (SD)
Texas (TX)
Utah (UT)
Washington (WA)
Wyoming (WY)

3 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Louisiana (LA)
Missouri (MO)
West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record LILE3 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 3a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -36°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Linum lewisii · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 84220, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 40' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
Greenstrips: Another Tool to Manage Wildfire: common perennial plant used in a maintained northern Nevada greenstrip [unr-fs-97-36-greenstrip] (with its recommendation)
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants: suitable for defensible-space zones 1-2 (score 8+) [CSU defensible-space zone] (with its recommendation)
Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity: Fire Hazard column: low [tahoe-guide-2006] (with its recommendation)
Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills: Flowers & groundcovers [black-hills-plant-form-table] (with its recommendation)
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 5, Flowers and Ground Covers, p5-r34 [nm-emnrd-firewise-table-row] (with its recommendation)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (6)

Greenstrips: Another Tool to Manage Wildfire (Fact Sheet 97-36) — University of Nevada Cooperative Extension · Fact Sheet 97-36 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: greenstrip-tree

“Common perennial plants used in greenstrips and selected characteristics important to their establishment and use”

Table 1 row: Lewis flax (Linum lewisii). Minimum yearly precipitation: 10-12 inches; salt or alkali tolerance: Moderate; status: N; growth form, flower color, or season: Blue/Sp; varieties: ‘Appar’. The fact sheet says greenstrips should be grazed or mown frequently enough to reduce fuel buildup; otherwise their effectiveness is reduced dramatically.
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) — Colorado State University Extension / Colorado State Forest Service (Wildfire Mitigation Series) · 2025 · original source Primary evidence Field program lineage: idaho-tree

“ignitability score 8 of 10” · score 8 (idaho-0-10)

CSU 6.305 table lists Linum lewisii (Lewis or blue flax) with the preserved ignitability score.

Corroboration (4 rows from 4 sources)

Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity (Ed. Bulletin 06-01) — Nevada Division of Forestry / University of Nevada Cooperative Extension · Bulletin 06-01 (2006) · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unr-tree

“low — Flax, blue or Flax, Lewis — Linum lewisii”

Table 1's Fire Hazard column prints “low” for this taxon. The guide calls the rating a rough estimate of potential flammability, not a result of scientific trials. Its footnote says plants that turn brown often become high fire hazards and tells readers to mow grasses and forbs when they begin to turn brown.
Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Fremont County Firewise · web page (server last-modified 2011-02-25) · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unknown

“Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Linum lewisii — Wild Blue Flax”

Listed in the source's Ground Covers section; the page describes its listed Firewise plants as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.
Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills — NFPA Firewise Communities · 2004 scan / 2007 archive · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: firewise-national

“Flowers & groundcovers: Wild blue flax — Linum lewisii”

The introduction describes all table entries as fire-resistive plants that can be used in landscaping.
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico — New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division · 2003 Forestry Division PDF · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: csu-nmsu-firewise

“FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”

Listed as Linum lewisii (Blue flax) in Flowers and Ground Covers. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=Y, 5,000 ft=Y, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=Y, 9,000+ ft=Y. Water need: L-H; sun/shade: S/PS; mature height: 1-2’; approximate bloom: May- Sep.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database — Idaho Firewise (BLM + College of Western Idaho + Idaho Botanical Garden) · original source Primary evidence Field program lineage: idaho-tree

“fire-resistance score 7 of 10” · score 7 (idaho-0-10)

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Linum lewisii (Wild Blue Flax). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/linum-lewisii/. Last verified 2026-08-23.