Mentzelia dispersaS.Watson

bushy blazingstar

WFO wfo-0001073671 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Mentzelia dispersa, photographed by Ken-ichi Ueda
fig. a Ken-ichi Ueda, CC BY 4.0 / 2017-06-11 / obs. 8450091
Mentzelia dispersa, photographed by Ken-ichi Ueda
fig. b Ken-ichi Ueda, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 8450096
Mentzelia dispersa, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. c Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 140040669
Mentzelia dispersa, photographed by joergmlpts
fig. d joergmlpts, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 79249749
Mentzelia dispersa, photographed by Scott Loarie
fig. e Scott Loarie, CC0 1.0 / obs. 8534157
Mentzelia dispersa, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. f Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172110818
Mentzelia dispersa, photographed by joergmlpts
fig. g joergmlpts, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 79249772
Mentzelia dispersa, photographed by Scott Loarie
fig. h Scott Loarie, CC0 1.0 / obs. 8534169

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 14 botanical countries

Regions where Mentzelia dispersa is native: Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Mexico Northwest, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming ArizonaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoMexico NorthwestMontanaNevadaNorth DakotaOregonSouth DakotaUtahWashingtonWyoming
Native distribution of Mentzelia dispersa, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Arizona ARI NORTHERN AMERICA
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Mexico Northwest MXN
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
North Dakota NDA
Oregon ORE
South Dakota SDA
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 79 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -13.8 °C -6.0 °C 4.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.0 °C 27.5 °C 31.3 °C
Annual rainfall 275 mm 499 mm 1,014 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 6 mm 32 mm 92 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 79 research-grade observations of Mentzelia dispersa that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 18 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Acrolasia albicaulis var. integrifolia (S.Watson) Daniels
  • Acrolasia compacta (A.Nelson) Rydb.
  • Acrolasia dispersa (S.Watson) Davidson
  • Acrolasia dispersa (S.Watson) Rydb.
  • Acrolasia integrifolia (Rydb.) Rydb.
  • Acrolasia latifolia Rydb.
  • Acrolasia pinetorum (A.Heller) A.Heller
  • Mentzelia albicaulis var. integrifolia S.Watson
  • Mentzelia compacta A.Nelson
  • Mentzelia dispersa var. compacta (A.Nelson) J.F.Macbr.
  • Mentzelia dispersa var. dispersa
  • Mentzelia dispersa var. latifolia (Rydb.) J.F.Macbr.
  • Mentzelia dispersa var. obtusa Jeps.
  • Mentzelia dispersa var. pinetorum (A.Heller) Jeps.
  • Mentzelia integrifolia Rydb.
  • Mentzelia integrifolia var. genuina Urb. & Gilg
  • Mentzelia latifolia (Rydb.) A.Nelson
  • Mentzelia pinetorum A.Heller

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.