BERLANDIER'S EVENING PRIMROSE
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Oenothera berlandieri   (Spach ) Steud.
[=Calylophus berlandieri Spach]
[=Calylophus drummondianus Spach  subsp. berlanderi  (Spach ) Towner & Raven]
Oklahoma panhandle (photo by Marion McGlohon)
Perennial
Height: 4-30 inches
Family: Onagraceae - Evening-primrose Family
Flowering Period:   April, May, June, July, August
Stems: Decumbent to erect, simple or branched, glabrous or finely strigose to canescent; epidermis green or brown, sometimes exfoliating.
Leaves: Cauline, alternate, sessile; blade spatulate to narrowly lanceolate or linear, 1/2 to 3.5 inches long, 1/25 to 2/5 inch wide, margins nearly entire to serrate, surfaces glabrous or finely strigose to canescent.
Inflorescences: Axillary, flowers solitary.
Flowers: Radially symmetric; hypanthium 1/5 to 4/5 inch, glabrous or finely strigose to canescent; sepals 4, deciduous, absent on fruit, reflexed, triangular, 1/5 to 1/2 inch, with conspicuously keeled midrib; petals yellow, 4, nearly orbiculate, obovate, or obcordate, 2/5 to 1 inch, tip rounded to truncate or shallowly notched; stamens 8, of 2 lengths; anthers 1/7 to 1/5 inch; stigma positioned above anthers, somewhat 4-angled.
Fruits: Capsules, ascending, cylindric, 2/5 to 1.6 inch long, 1/25 to 1/12 inch wide, straight or slightly curved, 4-angled, strigose; seeds many per fruit, brown, obliquely truncate and angled, 1/25 to 1/12 inch, obscurely roughened.
Habitat: Rocky to sandy shortgrass prairies
Distribution: Southwest corner of Kansas
Origin: Native
Comments: Named for French botanist Jean Louis Berlandier. Oenothera has been expanded to include Calylophus, a genus formerly recognized as separate in the Great Plains.

Berlandier's evening primrose
120 KB
Oklahoma panhandle (photo by Marion McGlohon)
Berlandier's evening primrose
157 KB
Oklahoma panhandle (photo by Marion McGlohon)