Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Scarlet butterfly weed

SCARLET BUTTERFLY WEED

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Oenothera suffrutescens (Ser. ) W. L. Wagner & Hoch

Barber County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 8-24 inches

Family: Onagraceae - Evening Primrose Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July, August

Stems:

Erect to ascending, several to many, slender, branched at bases, densely short-hairy or nearly glabrous.

Leaves:

Alternate, simple, mostly sessile, linear to lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, .25 to 2.25 inches long, less than .5 inch wide, minutely pubescent; margins entire or shallow-toothed; tips pointed or blunt.

Inflorescences:

Racemes, spike-like, 2 to 16 inches long.

Flowers:

Sepals 4, linear; flowers sessile, initially white, fading pink or red; petals 4, to .25 inch long, clawed; stamens 8, anthers yellow to red; stigma deeply 4-lobed.

Fruits:

Capsules, nutlike, cylindric, narrowed above; seeds 1-4, tiny, reddish brown.

Habitat:

Dry prairies, open wooded hillsides, roadsides, and stream valleys.

Distribution:

West 2/3 of Kansas.

Uses:

The Lakota Sioux rubbed this plant on their hands to make them sticky to aid in catching horses, and the Navajo used a cold tea made from scarlet gaura to settle children's upset stomachs.

Comments:

Scarlet butterfly weed forms colonies. It was formerly named scarlet gaura, Gaura coccinea.

Scarlet gaura