Mentzelia pumila is in the Loasa family. Kearny and Peebles in Arizona Flora say, “the family is remarkable for the diversity and peculiar structure of the hairs”. It’s pretty hard to hike around the borderlands and not have stickleaf plant parts stuck to your clothing and those sticky plant parts are tough to remove.
Another common name I ran across for Mentzelia is blazing star. A name easily understood when you see those blazing flowers open in the late afternoon to be visited by native bees and moths.
A couple notes: the book I mentioned is A Field Guide to Desert Holes, by Pinau Merlin. I recommend adding it to your field guides. Oh, and the photo of the stickleaf flower was taken just a few feet from the front door of our 1991 Marvelette.
It’s true that life in southeastern Arizona is full of “behold!” moments. It is so exciting to live in such a diverse land, both...
It was Linnaeus that created the name Mimosa from the Greek: mimos for mime and the suffix osa for resembling. And as to the...
Petey waxes poetic about the plants and animals found around his little homestead and finally focuses on a plant called Mentzelia pumila. Let’s listen.
