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 took a visiting niece to get Petey back out into the Sonoran desert and remind him that the desert is beautiful.
Eumorpha typhon or the typhon sphinx moth is out and about gathering nectar and sharing pollen from June to August in the borderlands. I...
Petey may be turning his skin into a field guide. A Peteyson Field Guide?! Oh dear. Curve billed thrashers, zone tailed hawks and box...
