El Paso blazingstar El Paso blazingstar

Plants usually biennial, rarely perennial, bushlike or candelabra-form, perennials with ground-level caudices. Stems solitary or multiple, erect, straight; branches distal or along entire stem, distal longest or all ± equal, antrorse, upcurved; hairy. Leaves: blade 21–44.4 × 5.9–11.2 mm, widest intersinus distance 1.6–3.4 mm; proximal oblanceolate to elliptic, margins pinnate, lobes 6–14, slightly antrorse, 2.4–3.9 mm; distal oblanceolate, elliptic, or lanceolate, base not clasping, margins pinnate, lobes 4–12, slightly antrorse, 1.8–3.9 mm; abaxial surface with simple grappling-hook and complex grappling-hook trichomes, adaxial surface with simple grappling-hook and needlelike trichomes. Bracts: margins entire. Flowers: petals light to golden yellow, 11.7–16.6 × 3.8–4.8 mm, apex rounded, glabrous abaxially; stamens light to golden yellow, 5 outermost petaloid, filaments narrowly spatulate, slightly clawed, 10.4–14.6 × 2–3.8 mm, usually without, rarely with, anthers, second whorl with anthers; anthers twisted or straight after dehiscence, epidermis papillate or not; styles 6.8–9 mm. Capsules cup-shaped, 7–11.9 × 5.7–7.3 mm, length to 2 times diam., base rounded, not longitudinally ridged. Seeds: coat anticlinal cell walls straight, papillae 38–45 per cell. 2n = 20.

Flowering Mar–Oct. Dry roadsides, slopes; 500–1500 m; Tex.; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Zacatecas).

Mentzelia saxicola occurs in the flora area in El Paso, Hudspeth, and Presidio counties.