General: Perennial herb from a long creeping rhizome; stems erect, 10-80 cm tall, sometimes branched above, smooth, glaucous; milky juice appearing when stems or leaves broken.
Leaves: Alternate or the lowermost nearly opposite, numerous, unstalked, linear to narrowly lanceolate, smooth-margined, 2-10 cm long, smooth.
Flowers: Inflorescence a long, terminal, smooth to minutely glandular-hairy, spike-like cluster of numerous short-stalked flowers, at first dense, elongating in age; corollas bright yellow with a central, orange-hairy patch at the throat, 20-35 mm long including the long straight basal spur, which is about as long as the rest of the corolla, 2-lipped, the upper lip 2-lobed, the lower lip 3-lobed; calyces 2-4 mm long, deeply 5-lobed, the lobes nearly distinct, lanceolate; stamens 4.
Fruits: Capsules, egg-shaped to broadly cylindric, 5-10 mm long; seeds numerous, disc-shaped with broad wings, about 2 mm long, the central portion pimply.
Moist to dry fields, roadsides, waste places and open forests; frequent in BC south of 57degreeN, except absent from the Queen Charlotte Islands, rare northward; introduced from Eurasia.
Flowering dates for this species in our region range from June 14 to September 5, based on photo records in the E-Flora BC photo gallery and the Burke Museum photo gallery.
Ecology
Ecological Framework for Linaria vulgaris
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)