Mentzelia veatchiana
Mentzelia nuda
Veatch's blazing star, white-stem blazingstar, white-stem stick-leaf
bractless blazingstar, goodmother, naked blazingstar or western star, stickleaf mentzelia
solitary (or multiple as wound response), erect, straight;
branches distal, distal longest, antrorse, straight; hairy.
blade 37–120 × 5–24.4 mm, widest intersinus distance 4.8–19.6 mm;
proximal oblanceolate to elliptic, margins serrate, teeth 14–30, slightly antrorse, 0.6–4.9 mm;
distal elliptic to lanceolate, base not clasping, margins serrate, teeth 12–30, slightly antrorse, 0.7–4.7 mm;
abaxial surface with simple grappling-hook, complex grappling-hook, and needlelike 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 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, 22.6–49 × 3.6–10.3 mm, apex acute, glabrous abaxially, stamens white, 5 outermost petaloid, filaments narrowly spatulate, slightly clawed, 20–47 × 3–10.2 mm, without anthers, second whorl without anthers;
anthers straight after dehiscence, epidermis smooth;
styles 11.5–18.5 mm.
clavate, 8–28 × 2–4 mm, axillary curved to 70° at maturity, usually inconspicuously longitudinally ribbed.
cylindric, 14.5–29 × 6.9–12.3 mm, base tapering or 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 4–8 per cell.
= 54.
= 20.
Mentzelia veatchiana
Mentzelia nuda
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 nuda is morphologically similar to, and phylogenetically near, M. strictissima (J. J. Schenk 2009), but it can be distinguished from the latter by its much larger flowers and capsules. The two species have adjacent ranges in New Mexico and Texas but do not overlap despite apparently similar habitat requirements. Mentzelia strictissima occurs west and south of M. nuda and abuts against the southernmost portion of the Rocky Mountains. In the northern portion of its range, M. nuda too approaches the foothills of the southern Rocky Mountains and extends eastward into the plains. Mentzelia nuda was collected once in northeastern Illinois in 1901 but apparently did not become established there. Reports of M. nuda from Arizona are based on misidentified material of M. laevicaulis and M. rusbyi.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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