Mentzelia nitens
Mentzelia lagarosa
shining blazing star, Venus blazingstar
slender-lobed blazingstar
solitary, erect, straight;
branches distal, distal longest, antrorse, straight; hairy.
blade 11.3–103 × 4.8–20.1 mm, widest intersinus distance 1.2–5.7 mm;
proximal oblanceolate to elliptic, margins pinnate to pinnatisect, lobes 8–20, slightly antrorse or perpendicular to leaf axis, 1.4–8.2 mm;
distal elliptic to lanceolate, base not clasping, margins pinnatisect, lobes 6–16, slightly antrorse or perpendicular to leaf axis, 1.6–7.5 mm;
abaxial surface with simple grappling-hook, complex grappling-hook, and occasionally needlelike trichomes, adaxial surface with simple grappling-hook and needlelike trichomes.
persisting;
petiole present or absent;
blade lanceolate to linear, margins usually deeply to shallowly lobed, rarely entire.
petiole absent;
blade ovate-lanceolate to linear, to 15 cm, margins deeply to shallowly lobed or entire.
green, lanceolate, 4.5–8.3 × 1.2–3.6 mm, width 1/5–1/2 length, not concealing capsule, margins entire.
margins usually entire, sometimes toothed or pinnate.
sepals 3–8 mm;
petals yellow to orange proximally, yellow distally, (7–)8–18 mm, apex rounded or acute apex;
stamens 20+, 3–8 mm, filaments monomorphic, filiform, unlobed;
styles 4–8 mm.
petals golden yellow, 8.3–13 × 2.2–5.4 mm, apex acute or rounded, glabrous abaxially;
stamens golden yellow, 5 outermost petaloid, filaments narrowly spatulate, slightly clawed, 6.5–10.7 × 1.7–4.3 mm, without anthers, second whorl with anthers;
anthers straight after dehiscence, epidermis smooth;
styles 6.1–10.2 mm.
clavate, 13–26 × 2–3.5 mm, axillary curved to 180° at maturity, usually inconspicuously longitudinally ribbed.
cylindric, 12.1–21.2 × 4.9–7.6 mm, base tapering or rounded, not longitudinally ridged.
15–40, in 2+ rows distal to mid fruit, tan, usually dark-mottled, usually irregularly polygonal, occasionally triangular prisms proximal to mid fruit, surface colliculate under 10x magnification; recurved flap over hilum usually present;
seed coat cell outer periclinal wall domed, domes on seed edges less than 1/2 as tall as wide at maturity.
coat anticlinal cell walls wavy, papillae 29–31 per cell.
= 18.
= 22.
Mentzelia nitens
Mentzelia lagarosa
Mentzelia nitens is similar to both M. eremophila and M. jonesii but exhibits little distributional overlap with either species. See 71. M. eremophila and 73. M. jonesii for discussion of similarities. Reports of M. nitens from Arizona are based on specimens treated here as M. jonesii.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Mentzelia lagarosa is allopatric with two of the three species most similar to it, namely M. holmgreniorum and M. filifolia, and nearly allopatric with the third, M. laciniata. Where the ranges of M. lagarosa and M. laciniata overlap in western Colorado, they can be distinguished by petal length [8.3–13 mm in M. lagarosa versus 14–23.8(–26) mm in M. laciniata], outermost stamen length (6.5–10.7 mm in M. lagarosa versus 12–20 mm in M. laciniata), and number of seed coat cell papillae (29–31 per cell in M. lagarosa versus 5–14 per cell in M. laciniata); in addition, M. lagarosa bears both simple grappling-hook and needlelike trichomes on its adaxial leaf blade surfaces, whereas leaf blades of M. laciniata bear only needlelike trichomes adaxially. In the Intermountain Flora, N. H. Holmgren et al. (2005) treated M. lagarosa as a synonym of M. multiflora, but J. J. Schenk and L. Hufford (2011) showed not only that M. lagarosa is distinct from M. multiflora, but also that the latter does not occur in the intermountain region.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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