Se. Meyer et Sg. Kitchen, LIFE-HISTORY VARIATION IN BLUE FLAX (LINUM PERENNE, LINACEAE) - SEED-GERMINATION PHENOLOGY, American journal of botany, 81(5), 1994, pp. 528-535
Linum perenne L. is a nonclonal perennial herb widely distributed acro
ss a range of habitats. Variation in seed germination patterns was exa
mined for 21 Intermountain collections and for the commercial cultivar
'Appar'. Collections from sites with long, snowy winters were largely
dormant at harvest and responded positively to chilling. Collections
from middle elevation sagebrush-grassland sites were generally nondorm
ant and contained a fraction induced into secondary dormancy by chilli
ng. Collections from palouse prairie and pinyon-juniper sites were gen
erally nondormant and unaffected by chilling, as was 'Appar'. When see
ds of contrasting populations were planted in seed retrieval experimen
ts at low, middle, and high elevation sites, their Geld germination ph
enology was predictable from laboratory experiments. In common garden
experiments, there were significant among-sibship differences in germi
nation for each garden-grown wild accession but not for 'Appar', sugge
sting that differences both among and within populations may be geneti
cally based. Garden-grown seeds were generally less dormant than wild-
collected seeds, possibly because of selection during propagation. Res
ults demonstrated the existence of ecologically relevant among-populat
ion and within-population variation in germination phenology for blue
flax. Seeds of high-montane populations are spring-emerging and have l
ittle provision for between-year carryover. Populations from lower ele
vation habitats with less predictable weather have seeds with contrast
ing germination patterns, allowing for emergence in both fall and spri
ng as well as for seed bank carryover. 'Appar' seeds lack these predic
tive and carryover mechanisms.