Small, 5-Petaled, Yellow Wildflower?

last year

This small, yellow wildflower about ~3/8" across was found growing in a vacant field. It was about ~4" tall. What is it?

Featured Answer

cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)

last year

"You know what weird, and rather sad, though is that out of 330 million Americans, there's only just a handful of regs on here that actively help ID all these plants...plus 1 is over in the UK (floral_uk"

Speaking for myself (a long-time lurker), I can never remember or recognize so much in my yard, whether I planted it or it just came to visit and decided to stay. Sigh. Trying to get better, but I fear I have waited too long, my brain is shrinking, and now it is hopeless.

So, I am exceedingly grateful to all of you. :-) . Plus, I don't have a decent camera.

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Comments (7)

Jay 6a Chicago
last year
last modified: last year
Linum species, look at L. striatum, sulcatum, schiedeanum, rigidum, alatum, berlandieri. I can't do any better with these blurry photos, and can't submit them for a 2nd opinion. Also no idea of the form. Could you try to get pictures of the whole plant, with other vegetation pushed aside, next time you photograph small plants?😆
blakrab Centex thanked Jay 6a Chicago
macranthos
last year
I mean, really blackrab, we've known you for so long, we should all just pool some money to buy you a better camera for our own sakes here. :-)
blakrab Centex thanked macranthos
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Jay 6a Chicago
last year
last modified: last year
I have a Samsung s21 ultra. It was supposed to take great macro shots, but I'm not impressed. A friend was getting great macros using an attachment macro lens that clamps to the phone. I ordered the lens, but I can't adjust it correctly for great macros. I'm taking a break from working on it, until I have enough patience.

I wish I had thousands to spend on a great camera. With my camera it's hit and miss, for getting nice captures, if it's really a smart phone, why isn't it smart enough to take a great picture every single time? I managed to take an acceptable photo of one of my Carex species, so there's hope. The macro is like $30. A lower end, but decent new camera, can be bought at $200 to $300. The tech thing with transferring photos to my phone kind of scares me.
blakrab Centex thanked Jay 6a Chicago
blakrab Centex
Original Author
last year
last modified: last year
^^ Lol, thanks...but aren't my photos usually pretty good? :/

Granted, wildflowers are the hardest to capture because you usually have to use a macro setting on a 3D (not flat leaf) flower on a thin stem...which gets hard to autofocus on alone...much less when it's typically swaying around in a ubiquitous wind.

And of course, whenever you macro in on one part, the rest gets blurred out...

I thought my first pic here showed the whole stem pretty well, though...and the second the flower?

It does certainly appear to be a Linum sp., though!

You know what weird, and rather sad, though is that out of 330 million Americans, there's only just a handful of regs on here that actively help ID all these plants...plus 1 is over in the UK (floral_uk), lol...
Virginia
last year
Blakrab, it used to be a whole lot busier in the early days, the late 90s or early 00s. And the Exchange pages were much busier with plant trades. I know things changed after it was sold and became a money-producing product.
blakrab Centex thanked Virginia
Jay 6a Chicago
last year
Blackrab. The quality of this photo was good enough for an ID. It was the angle of the shot, it didn't show the entire plant, and when I look at it, it looks like something in the Iris family, because the stem looks like it's rising from Iris type leaves. If the entire plant was shown, we'd know instantly that those leaves are stem leaves, and not basal leaves.