Duration: Biennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Biennial with stout stems, tortuous, grayish to yellowish white, striate; finely scaberulous with antrorsely barbed hairs, epidermis splitting and peeling away on older parts; grows to 60 cm tall.

Leaves: Linear-lanceolate to oblanceolate, 3-10 cm long, irregularly sinuate-dentate to pinnatifid, both surfaces scabrous with glochidiate hairs, lower leaves short-petiolate, upper sessile and partially clasping.

Flowers: In terminal, few flowered cymes, subtended by 1-2 linear bracts at base of 5-15 mm calyx tube, calyx clavate to cylindrical, scabrous; calyx lobes oblong, attenuate 8-10 mm long; petals 10, yellow, lanceolate to broadened and longer than inner, linear, in 3-4 series.

Fruits: Capsule subcylindrical, oblong or clavate, attenuate below 15-20 mm long, scabrous and striate.

Ecology: Found on sandy soils, on slopes, plains and washes from 100-8,000 ft (61-2438 m); flowers February-October.

Notes: Stick a leaf to your clothes to double check the stickleaf family.

Ethnobotany: Used as a laxative, as a toothache medicine, and as a substitute for tobacco.

Etymology: Mentzelia named for Christian Mentzel (1622-1701), a 17th century German botanist, botanical author and physician, pumila means dwarf.

Synonyms: Bartonia pumila, Hesperaster pumilus, Nuttallia pumila, Touterea pumila

Editor: SBuckley, 2010