Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Eucnide bartonioides

Loasaceae

yellow rocknettle, yellow stingbush

blazing-star family, loasa family, stickleaf family
Habit Herbs or subshrubs, annual or perennial, moundlike to spindle-shaped (wider than tall). Herbs, subshrubs, shrubs, [or trees], annual, biennial, or perennial, evergreen (leaves withering in age), scabrid, trichomes (1) unbranched and smooth, knobby, notched, or antrorsely or retrorsely barbed, (2) dendritic, and/or (3) stinging.
Leaves

blade shallowly to prominently lobed.

alternate [opposite], simple;

stipules absent;

petiole present or absent;

blade sometimes lobed, margins entire, serrate, dentate, or crenate;

venation pinnate, basal secondary veins commonly present.
Inflorescences

terminal, cymes, thyrses, racemes, panicles, or flowers solitary.
Pedicels

(fruiting) 3–35+ cm, frequently recurved.

Flowers

radially symmetric or slightly bilaterally symmetric through upward curvature of stamen filaments;

corolla funnelform, petals connate to 3 mm, 1-colored, yellow, spatulate, 10–55[–58] mm;

stamens 15–150+, inserted at base of corolla, exserted, spreading away from style;

filaments 13–60 mm, longer than anthers.

bisexual, usually radially symmetric, rarely bilaterally symmetric (by bilateral symmetry of corolla, androecium, or gynoecium);

perianth and androecium epigynous;

hypanthium adnate to ovary proximally and free distally, or completely adnate to ovary;

sepals 5, radially symmetric, distinct or connate basally;

petals 5, radially or bilaterally symmetric, distinct or connate, sometimes postgenitally coherent;

nectary absent or present, distal on ovary;

stamens 5–150+, distinct, free or adnate to petal bases, bilaterally or radially symmetric;

anthers dehiscing by longitudinal slits;

staminodes absent or present, sometimes petaloid and petals appearing to be 6+;

pistil 1, 3–7-carpellate, ovary inferior, 1-locular, placentation parietal, subapical, or apical;

ovules 1–60+ per locule, anatropous (epitropous);

style 1;

stigma 1, 2–5(–7)-lobed (lobes usually as many as carpels, except in pseudomonomerous Gronovioideae).
Fruits

capsules, dehiscence by apical valves [splitting longitudinally], or cypselae, sepals or sepals and petals persisting.
Seeds

1–60+ per fruit.

Eucnide bartonioides

Loasaceae
Distribution
from FNA
TX; n Mexico
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
North America; Mexico; Central America; South America; sw Asia (w Arabian Peninsula); Africa; Atlantic Islands (Cape Verde); Pacific Islands
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Genera 20, species ca. 350 (4 genera, 94 species in the flora).

Loasaceae are in Cornales and are the sister family of Hydrangeaceae. The two families likely diverged in western North America or Mexico in the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, 92–58 million years before present (J. J. Schenk and L. Hufford 2010). Most extant species of Loasaceae in western North America date to the Oligocene or more recent times, with the Miocene and later periods being especially rich phases for speciation (Schenk and Hufford; J. Grissom and Hufford, unpubl.). In Loasaceae, Eucnide and Schismocarpus S. F. Blake, a genus restricted to southern Mexico, are the earliest diverging lineages, and the cliff-dwelling habits of these two genera may be plesiomorphic for the family (Hufford et al. 2003). The species-rich genus Mentzelia is well supported as the sister of a clade that consists of the taxonomically depauperate genera Cevallia, Fuertesia Urban, Gronovia Linnaeus, and Petalonyx. Phylogenetic studies support the monophyly of subfamilies Gronovioideae Fenzl and Loasoideae Gilg as conceived by I. Urban and E. Gilg (1900), but their early concept of Mentzelioideae as including both Eucnide and Mentzelia (and also Schismocarpus according to S. F. Blake 1918b; Gilg 1925b) is paraphyletic (Hufford et al.). To enable classification based on monophyly, circumscription of Mentzelioideae should be restricted to Mentzelia. The Mentzelia plus Gronovioideae clade is sister to the more taxon rich subfam. Loasoideae, which is especially prevalent in Andean South America (Hufford et al.).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Petals 30–55 mm; stamens (55–)70–150+, filaments 30–60 mm.
var. bartonioides
1. Petals 10–25 mm; stamens 15–70, filaments 13–30(–35) mm.
var. edwardsiana
1. Stamens 5; seeds 1 per fruit; fruits cypselae.
→ 2
2. Inflorescences headlike thyrses, peduncles to 1 dm; perianth whorls similar, sepals and petals white to yellowish abaxially, yellow adaxially, linear-lanceolate; petals densely hairy on both surfaces; stamen filaments dorsiventrally flattened, linear, shorter than anthers; anthers with distal connective extension; stigmas densely hairy.
Cevallia
2. Inflorescences racemes or panicles, peduncles inconspicuous; perianth whorls differentiated, sepals green, lanceolate, petals white, spatulate; petals glabrous except hairy abaxially on midribs; stamen filaments filiform, longer than anthers; anthers without distal connective extension; stigmas papillate.
Petalonyx
1. Stamens 8–50+; seeds (1–)2–60+ per fruit; fruits capsules.
→ 3
3. Pistils 3-carpellate; stigmas 3-lobed.
Mentzelia
3. Pistils 5–7-carpellate; stigmas 5–7-lobed.
→ 4
4. Hypanthium completely adnate to ovary; petals connate proximally to 1/2+ length; stamen filaments filiform; pedicels elongating in fruit; seeds cylindric to ovoid, to 1 mm, not winged.
Eucnide
4. Hypanthium adnate to ovary proximally, free distally; petals distinct or connate basally; 5 outermost stamen filaments dorsiventrally flattened, spatulate; pedicels not elongating in fruit; seeds dorsiventrally flattened, 2.3–4 mm, winged.
Mentzelia
Source FNA vol. 12, p. 495. FNA vol. 12, p. 491. Author: Larry Hufford.
Parent taxa Loasaceae > Eucnide
Sibling taxa
E. lobata, E. rupestris, E. urens
Subordinate taxa
E. bartonioides var. bartonioides, E. bartonioides var. edwardsiana
Cevallia, Eucnide, Mentzelia, Petalonyx
Name authority Zuccarini: Index Seminum (München) 1844: [4]. (1844) Jussieu
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers