Mentzelia veatchiana
Mentzelia speciosa
Veatch's blazing star, white-stem blazingstar, white-stem stick-leaf
jeweled blazingstar, showy western star
solitary, erect, straight;
branches distal or along entire stem, distal or proximal longest, antrorse, upcurved; hairy.
blade 43.6–233 × 9.2–34.7 mm, always some longer than 146 mm, widest intersinus distance 5.2–17 mm;
proximal oblanceolate to elliptic, margins serrate to pinnate, teeth or lobes 10–38, slightly antrorse, 1.5–9.4 mm;
distal lanceolate, base not clasping, margins serrate to pinnate, teeth or lobes 8–24, slightly antrorse, 2.9–10.3 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 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, 14.4–28.6 × 3.8–8 mm, apex acute to rounded, glabrous abaxially;
stamens golden yellow, 5 outermost petaloid, filaments narrowly spatulate, slightly clawed, 13–21.3 × 2.9–6.8 mm, without anthers, second whorl with anthers;
anthers straight after dehiscence, epidermis smooth;
styles 8.9–15.2 mm.
clavate, 8–28 × 2–4 mm, axillary curved to 70° at maturity, usually inconspicuously longitudinally ribbed.
cylindric, 13.1–31.1 × 5.7–9.4 mm, base tapering to 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 4–13 per cell.
= 54.
= 18, 20.
Mentzelia veatchiana
Mentzelia speciosa
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 sinuata is treated here as a synonym of M. speciosa. The morphological characters previously used to differentiate these taxa are much more variable and overlapping than previous authors have identified, including within material from type populations. Although typical morphological forms of each taxon can be found, intermediate forms are found throughout the putative species’ highly overlapping ranges, often in a single population. The main character used to differentiate the two species has been chromosome number, with M. sinuata having 2n = 18 and M. speciosa having 2n = 20. Until a cytological study is conducted on populations throughout the range, M. speciosa is regarded as a single species that contains two chromosomal lineages.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
CA
OR
Flora NW
PNW Herbaria
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
