Mentzelia affinis

Yellow blazing star

Family: Loasaceae · Type: annual · Native

Yellow blazing star is a California native annual found in southern Sierra Nevada, San Joaquin Valley, southeastern San Francisco Bay (Mount Hamilton), southern Coast Ranges, southern Channel Islands, Transverse Ranges, San Jacinto Mountains, and Desert regions in rocky or gray-white soils of grassland, woodland, and creosote-bush scrub at elevations below 1,200 meters. Flowering from April to May, this plant produces bright yellow flowers with yellow to orange bases, generally ovate and 3 to 10 millimeters long. Growing with erect, hairy stems 5 to 47 centimeters tall, it has an upright and somewhat delicate appearance. Its leaves vary from 1 to 17 centimeters long, with proximal leaves having lobed or toothed edges while distal leaves are entire to slightly lobed. The fruit is an erect to slightly curved narrow cylindric structure 12 to 28 millimeters long, containing small tan seeds with distinctive grooved triangular cross-sections.

Habitat: Rocky or gray-white soils in grassland, woodland, creosote-bush scrub

Bloom period: Apr-May

Elevation: < 1200 m

Bioregions: s SN, SnJV, se SnFrB (Mount Hamilton), SCoRI, s ChI, TR, SnJt, D

California counties: San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Riverside, Inyo, Los Angeles, Kern, Ventura, Alameda, Fresno, San Benito, Stanislaus, Orange, Imperial, San Luis Obispo, San Diego, Contra Costa, Monterey, San Joaquin, Merced, Tulare, Kings

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.