Multislip and latent hardening tensile tests are performed on α-iron single crystals at room temperature, in order to check the assumption of crystallographic glide restricted to the {110} planes and the {112} asymmetric planes. The evidence of a macroscopic glide either following higher indexed planes or the maximum resolved shear stress plane (referred as “non-crystallographic glide”) is interpreted, through a theoretical approach of multislip situations—in terms of mechanics of continuous media and of plasticity theory—as colinear glide on a {110}-{112} neighbouring planes pair. The observed hardening behaviour allows to interpret the influence of the axis orientation on the preferred slip mode. The latent hardening tests are performed according to the assumption of glide on {110} and {112} planes. The experimental results are not consistent with a description of plastic flow resulting from four non crystallographic slip systems only defined by the 〈111〉 slip direction. A hardening law, prevously derived from tests on f.c.c. crystals, is extended in the simplest way in order to analyze the latent hardening tests results and to represent the main features of the observed plastic behaviour of the α-iron crystals.