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Brassicaceae family

False Flax Camelina sativa

Also known as: gold-of-pleasure

False Flax is an introduced annual herb, found in Alaska, Canada, and the lower 48 states. It grows to 1.5 ft and blooms May – Jul.

More about this plant

Camelina sativa is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae usually known as camelina, gold-of-pleasure, or false flax, but also occasionally as wild flax, linseed dodder, German sesame, or Siberian oilseed. It is native to Europe and areas of Central Asia, but cultivated as an oilseed crop mainly in Europe and in North America. It is not related to true flax, which is in the family Linaceae. Wikipedia →

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

False Flax is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Native ★

Clasping Milkweed

Asclepias amplexicaulis

Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY

Conditions

Sources · Conditions

Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness

Hardiness: ≥ zone 4 derived from its U.S. range

Size & form

Sources · Size & form

TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage

USDA PLANTS — Lifespan

Height: 1.5 ft
Lifespan: Annual
Foliage: Broadleaf

In the garden

Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →

derived roles

The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour

Bloom

Bloom (the flower's colour)

Bloom · May – Jul — 18 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits

Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).

Climate niche (heat tolerance & native rainfall) Derived

We take the plant’s U.S. county range and look up each county’s long-term climate, then summarise: native rainfall = the median annual rainfall across its counties; heat tolerance = the warm end (90th percentile) of average temperature across its range (mirroring how our cold-hardiness floor uses an extreme). Counties + medians blunt the roadside/observer bias that makes point-level climate unreliable. Needs at least five placeable counties.

Honest limits: A realized, sampling-biased niche (where it has been recorded, not its physiological optimum), and county climate is coarse — large Western counties span deserts and mountains. Derived guide, never a measured fact.

Realized-niche / climate-envelope approach (Pearson & Dawson 2003; Soberón 2007). Climate: NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals (1991–2020).

Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →

Sources for this entry (21) Open & cited

[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)

[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)

[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)

[07] Photos — iNaturalist — CC, credited per image

[08] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)

[09] Ecological value — GloBI

[10] Bloom period — Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)

[11] Foliage — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[12] Height — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[13] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[14] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[15] Climate niche — Derived — realized climate niche from U.S. county occurrences (GBIF) × NOAA NCEI county climate normals 1991–2020 (public domain)

[16] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones

[17] Mycorrhiza — FungalRoot v2.0 · Meng et al. 2024 (Dryad, CC0)

[18] Chromosomes — ChromoDB — IAPT/IOPB chromosome data series (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0)

[19] Human uses — Dr. Duke's Phytochemical & Ethnobotanical Databases (USDA, CC0)

[20] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)

[21] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county

Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.

Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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Ecological value open data

1 / 5 Keystone

Keystone (host) value — caterpillar, specialist-bee & monarch hosting. A low number means “not a keystone host,” not “low value”: generalist flower-visitor value is shown separately below.

Caterpillar host 1

⚠ invasive (US) — avoid

Deep dive

Caterpillar host · 1/5 — native butterfly & moth caterpillars that feed on this genus — the base of the food web (more caterpillars → more songbirds). Genus-level keystone count from Warren II 2026 (CC0; Tallamy host-use records), gap-filled by our GloBI derivation.

Counts are genus-level and banded 0–5. Full rubric →

Host / keystone value from open interaction data. How this is scored →

📍 In your area live

Invasive in the U.S.

Recorded in 38 states.

Open occurrence records place it in 15 counties across 9 states · GBIF (CC0/CC-BY)

Introduced — Alaska, Canada, and Conterminous United States

Recorded in 38 states/territories

Conservation

Invasive? Yes — widespread

Wetland indicator FACU

Toxicity & pet safety

Check the ASPCA pet database →

Educational, not veterinary advice. If you suspect your pet ate this plant, contact a vet or pet poison-control line.

Documented human uses Dr. Duke's

1 use-records

Historically recorded for

Cancer

A historical record of how this plant has been used — not medical or dietary advice, and not a claim that it is effective or safe. Many plants are toxic; never ingest or treat with a wild plant without expert guidance and a confirmed identification. Dr. Duke's →

Functional traits TRY · Dryad

Seed mass tiny

0.86 mg

dust-fine seed — surface-sow; needs careful propagation

Heat tolerance cool-climate

Prefers cool summers

recorded mostly in cool-summer regions — may struggle in prolonged heat

Native rainfall dry

Dry (~32 in/yr)

grows where rainfall is on the low side — fairly drought-tough

Mycorrhiza no symbiosis

Non-mycorrhizal (NM)

forms little or no mycorrhiza — feeds itself directly, so it gains less from fungal soil networks

Chromosomes recorded

2n = 26

somatic chromosome number

Deep dive — what these mean

Seed mass 1 mg — average weight of one seed. Bigger seeds are easier to hand-collect & direct-sow; dust-fine seeds need surface-sowing.

Photosynthesis — the standard “C3” pathway most plants use, most active in cooler, moister, moderate-light conditions. (pathway C3)

Climate niche — the rainfall & warmth of where it actually grows in the U.S., from its county range. A realized niche (where it’s recorded, not its ideal), so read it as a guide. ~32 in/yr rainfall · warm-end avg 54°F across 12 counties (GBIF × NOAA 1991–2020 normals)

Mycorrhiza NM — the root–fungus partnership it forms (AM = most plants; ECM = most forest trees; ERM = heaths; NM = none). Trades sugars for water & nutrients via shared soil networks.

Measured traits from TRY + Werner et al. (N-fix), Fan et al. (roots) & FungalRoot — general guidance, not species-specific prescriptions.

More modules coming

False Flax Camelina sativa

Growing & care

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