Santa Fe blazingstar facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Santa Fe blazingstar |
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|---|---|
| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Mentzelia
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| Species: |
springeri
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The Santa Fe blazingstar, also known as Mentzelia springeri, is a special flowering plant. It belongs to the Loasaceae family. This plant is only found in one place: the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico, USA. This means it is endemic to that area. An endemic species lives only in one specific place in the world.
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Discover the Santa Fe Blazingstar
This amazing plant is a perennial herb. This means it lives for more than two years. It grows in a mound shape with many branching stems. This gives it a bushy look.
What the Santa Fe Blazingstar Looks Like
The stems of the Santa Fe blazingstar are white. They can grow up to 30 to 50 centimeters tall. That's about the length of a ruler! Its leaves are long and narrow. The lowest leaves can be up to 4 centimeters long. These leaves have tiny, barbed hairs. These hairs can stick to your clothes!
The flowers grow at the end of the stems. Each flower has 10 bright yellow petals. They are shiny and just over a centimeter long. The flowers bloom in July and August. They open in the late afternoon. After the flowers, the plant grows a fruit. This fruit is a capsule up to a centimeter long.
Where the Santa Fe Blazingstar Grows
This plant likes to grow on rocky areas. It prefers soil made of pumice and ash. These are types of rock and soil that come from volcanoes.
You can find the Santa Fe blazingstar in certain types of forests. It grows in pinyon-juniper woodlands. It also lives in Ponderosa pine forests. Other plants that grow nearby include Apache plume and rubber rabbitbrush. You might also see brownplume wirelettuce and sticky gilia. Another plant found there is gypsum phacelia.
A large part of where this plant lives is inside Bandelier National Monument. This is a special protected area.
How the Plant Stays Safe
The Santa Fe blazingstar is quite safe. It lives in remote areas that are hard to reach. This means there are not many threats to its survival. Even if the soil is disturbed, it often does well. You can sometimes find it growing along roads. These roads are cut through the pumice soil. This shows how tough and adaptable this plant can be!
