Springer’s or Santa Fe blazingstar Springer’s or Santa Fe blazingstar

Nuttallia springeri Standley, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 26: 115. 1913

Plants perennial, bushlike, with subterranean caudices. Stems multiple, erect or decumbent, straight; branches along entire stem, distal longest or all ± equal, antrorse, upcurved; hairy. Leaves: blade 18–56 × 1.9–5.9 mm, widest intersinus distance 0.7–2.1 mm; proximal oblanceolate to elliptic, margins dentate to pinnate, teeth or lobes 6–12, perpendicular to leaf axis, 0.8–2.1 mm; distal elliptic, lanceolate, or linear, base not clasping, margins usually dentate, rarely entire, teeth (0–)4–6, perpendicular to leaf axis, 0.4–2.1 mm; abaxial surface with simple grappling-hook, complex grappling-hook, and needlelike trichomes, adaxial surface with simple grappling-hook, needlelike, and rarely complex grappling-hook trichomes. Bracts: margins entire. Flowers: petals golden yellow, 8.7–14.2 × 3.1–4.7 mm, apex rounded, glabrous abaxially; stamens golden yellow, 5 outermost petaloid, filaments narrowly spatulate, slightly clawed, 7–13.1 × 2–3.3 mm, without anthers, second whorl with anthers; anthers straight after dehiscence, epidermis smooth; styles 6.2–8.3 mm. Capsules cup-shaped to cylindric, 5.9–10.3 × 3.8–4.8 mm, base rounded to occasionally tapering, not longitudinally ridged. Seeds: coat anticlinal cell walls wavy, papillae 24–27 per cell. 2n = 22.

Flowering Mar–Aug. Sparsely vegetated, steep talus and pumice slopes; 1600–2200 m; N.Mex.

Mentzelia springeri is known only from Los Alamos and Sandoval counties.