Mentzelia veatchiana
Mentzelia humilis
Veatch's blazing star, white-stem blazingstar, white-stem stick-leaf
gypsum blazingstar
solitary or multiple, erect, straight;
branches distal or along entire stem, distal longest or all ± equal, antrorse; straight to upcurved; hairy.
blade 25–95 × 5.5–28(–36.2) mm, widest intersinus distance 0.8–9.1 mm;
proximal spatulate to oblanceolate or elliptic, margins pinnate to pinnatisect, lobes 4–16(–20), slightly antrorse or perpendicular to leaf axis, 2.3–11.8(–16.4) mm;
distal elliptic, lanceolate, spatulate, or linear, base not clasping, margins entire or dentate to pinnatisect, teeth or lobes (0–)4–16, slightly antrorse or perpendicular to leaf axis, 2.3–13.8(–16.9) mm;
abaxial surface with simple grappling-hook, needlelike, and sometimes complex grappling-hook trichomes, adaxial surface with simple grappling-hook and needlelike trichomes.
persisting;
petiole present or absent;
blade linear-lanceolate, margins deeply to shallowly lobed.
petiole absent;
blade ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, to 17 cm, margins usually deeply lobed to dentate, rarely entire.
usually green with prominent white base usually conspicuously extending outwards from midvein, rarely green, usually ovate, rarely lanceolate, 3.3–6.2 × 1.5–3.2 mm, width 1/4–7/8 length, not concealing capsule, margins usually 3–7-lobed, rarely entire.
margins usually entire, rarely pinnate.
sepals 2–5 mm;
petals red to orange proximally, orange to yellow distally, 4–7(–10) mm, apex retuse;
stamens 20+, 3–7 mm, filaments monomorphic, filiform, unlobed;
styles (3–)3.5–6 mm.
petals white, 10.3–13(–28.6) × 1.4–4 mm, apex acute, glabrous abaxially;
stamens white, 5 outermost petaloid, filaments linear to narrowly spatulate, slightly clawed, 8.8–19(–22.3) × 0.7–3.3 mm, without anthers, second whorl without anthers;
anthers straight after dehiscence, epidermis papillate;
styles 6.5–11.3 mm.
clavate, 8–28 × 2–4 mm, axillary curved to 70° at maturity, usually inconspicuously longitudinally ribbed.
cup-shaped, 5.3–10.2 × (4.2–)5.2–8.6 mm, base rounded, not longitudinally ridged.
15–35, in 2+ rows distal to mid fruit, tan, dark-mottled, usually irregularly polygonal, occasionally triangular prisms proximal to mid fruit, surface tuberculate under 10x magnification; recurved flap over hilum absent;
seed coat cell outer periclinal wall domed, domes on seed edges more than or equal to 1/2 as tall as wide at maturity.
coat anticlinal cell walls wavy, papillae 6–12 per cell.
= 54.
Mentzelia veatchiana
Mentzelia humilis
Mentzelia veatchiana is the most common and widely distributed hexaploid species in sect. Trachyphytum. It exhibits considerable morphological variation and can be difficult to distinguish from M. montana in northern California. Like the larger-flowered M. pectinata, M. veatchiana has interfertile populations with petal colors ranging from orange to yellow (J. E. Zavortink 1966). When bearing orange petals, M. veatchiana is easily distinguished from other species. Reports of M. veatchiana from Utah are based on specimens treated here as M. montana.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).
The basionym of Mentzelia humilis is often cited as M. multiflora var. humilis A. Gray (1852). However, in that publication Gray indicated accepted names in Roman capitals (see ipni.org), whereas the varietal name is in lower case, indicating that he was using it as a descriptive term rather than a scientific name. Valid publication of the basionym thus must be attributed to Urban and Gilg.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Leaf blade widest intersinus distances 0.8–2.6(–3.3) mm; lobes of proximal leaves 1–2.9 mm wide. | var. humilis |
1. Leaf blade widest intersinus distances 1.6–9.1 mm (always on some leaves greater than 2.6 mm); lobes of proximal leaves (1.1–)2.9–5.1 mm wide. | var. guadalupensis |
CA
OR
Flora NW
PNW Herbaria
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
