[Sidenote: =Evening Star=
_Mentzèlia Líndleyi_
=Yellow
Summer
California=]
A more slender plant than the last, with magnificent flowers, two and
a half inches across, which open in the evening and remain open during
the following morning. They have five, broad petals, with pointed tips,
bright golden-yellow, colored with vermilion at the base, and handsome
yellow centers. The filaments are very slender, some of the outer ones
slightly broadened at base, and the style is not cleft. This grows in
the mountains. There is a drawing of it in Miss Parsons's _Wild Flowers
of California_. It is called Buena Mujer, or Good Woman, by the Spanish
Californians, because the leaves stick so tightly to one.
[Sidenote: _Mentzèlia multiflòra_
=Yellow
Spring
Southwest, Utah, etc.=]
An odd-looking plant, with very pale, straggling stems and thickish
leaves, a pretty shade of pale green, all exceedingly disagreeable to
touch. The buds are tipped with salmon-color and the flowers are an
inch and a half to two inches across, with a long green calyx-tube with
buff lobes, ten petals, bright yellow inside and pale buff outside, and
pretty, fuzzy, yellow centers. They open in the evening, about five
o'clock, and the plant would be pretty, in spite of its harsh foliage,
if more of the flowers were out at one time. This is common along
roadsides in the Southwest and in New Mexico and Colorado.
[Sidenote: _Mentzèlia gracilénta_
=Yellow
Spring
Southwest=]
This has several pale greenish or pinkish stems, from a few inches to
a foot and a half tall, which look smooth but are very harsh to the
touch, springing from a cluster of stiff, harsh, dull-green leaves,
variously lobed or toothed. The flowers are nearly an inch across, with
glossy, bright yellow petals and beautiful, fuzzy, yellow centers, and
are very delicate and pretty.
[Illustration: Mentzelia multiflora.