Mentzelia veatchiana
Mentzelia leucophylla
Veatch's blazing star, white-stem blazingstar, white-stem stick-leaf
Ash Meadows blazingstar
multiple, erect, straight;
branches distal or along entire stem, distal longest or all ± equal, antrorse, straight; hairy.
blade 15–61 × 8–28.5 mm, widest intersinus distance 6–23.8 mm;
proximal obovate, ovate, or broadly elliptic, margins usually dentate to serrate, rarely entire, teeth (0–)6–20, slightly antrorse or perpendicular to leaf axis, 0.4–4 mm;
distal deltate to cordate, base clasping, margins usually dentate, rarely entire, teeth (0–)6–12, perpendicular to leaf axis, 0.5–2 mm;
abaxial surface with complex grappling-hook and needlelike trichomes, adaxial surface with needlelike trichomes, both surfaces whitish, densely hairy.
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 entire.
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 golden yellow, 9.2–13.2 × 2.8–5 mm, apex rounded, glabrous abaxially;
stamens golden yellow, 5 outermost petaloid, filaments narrowly spatulate, slightly clawed, 6–10.6 × 1.3–2.6 mm, with anthers, second whorl with anthers;
anthers twisted or straight after dehiscence, epidermis smooth;
styles 6–8.1 mm.
clavate, 8–28 × 2–4 mm, axillary curved to 70° at maturity, usually inconspicuously longitudinally ribbed.
cup-shaped, 5–9.5 × 6–8.6 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 straight, papillae 11–13 per cell.
= 54.
= 36.
Mentzelia veatchiana
Mentzelia leucophylla
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.)
Mentzelia leucophylla is known only from the Ash Meadows of Nye County (N. H. Holmgren et al. 2005). It is morphologically similar to M. oreophila, which occurs in Nye County and elsewhere, but the two taxa are not known to co-occur. Trichome density, despite being difficult to quantify, provides perhaps the easiest method to differentiate the two taxa, with the densely hairy leaves of M. leucophylla appearing whitish. In addition to characters provided in the key, M. leucophylla, which is up to seven decimeters tall, is often more robust than M. oreophila, which is no more than six decimeters tall.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
CA
OR
Flora NW
PNW Herbaria
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
