Taxonomy
Henry Nicholas Bolander was the first to collect and characterize Marin Dwarf Flax in the year 1863 in Marin County, during a project conducted by the California Geological Survey. Originally the new species was called Linum congestum by Asa Gray, although he described it in the section Hesperolinon within the same publication in the year 1865. It was J.K. Small who conveyed the discrete genus Hesperolinon to this plant in 1907.
By 1925 Jepson designated the Hesperolinon genus as a sector of the genus Linum and described Hesperolinon congestum as a subspecies of L. californicum. In 1961 Helen K. Sharsmith produced a definitive study of Hesperolinon, with the result that this taxon clearly merited genus standing; moreover, she also returned Marin Dwarf Flax, H. congestum to species status.
Read more about this topic: Hesperolinon Congestum