Mentzelia veatchiana

Veatch's blazing star

Family: Loasaceae · Type: annual · Native

Veatch's blazing star is a California native annual found in northern Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi, San Joaquin Valley, southern Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, Great Basin, and Desert regions in diverse habitats including desert, grassland, scrub, and oak/pine woodland at elevations of 200 to 2,500 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces orange to yellow flowers with red to orange bases, typically 4 to 7 millimeters long. Growing with erect, hairy stems 3 to 45 centimeters tall, it displays a variable growth habit in arid landscapes. Its leaves vary from lobed in lower portions to toothed or entire in upper portions, ranging from 1 to 18 centimeters long. The fruit is an erect to slightly curved capsule 8 to 28 millimeters long, containing irregularly angular seeds with distinctive dark mottling.

Habitat: Loamy to sandy desert, grassland, scrub, oak/pine woodland

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: 200-2500 m

Bioregions: n SNH, Teh, SnJV, SCoRI, TR, PR, GB, D

California counties: Los Angeles, Kern, San Bernardino, Inyo, Ventura, Riverside, Orange, Siskiyou, Tulare, San Diego, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, Monterey, Modoc, Mono, Imperial, Alameda, Alpine, Fresno, Lassen, Nevada, Plumas, San Benito, Stanislaus, San Luis Obispo, Sierra, Sutter

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