Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Velvet butterfly weed

VELVET BUTTERFLY WEED

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Oenothera curtiflora W. L. Wagner & Hoch

[=Gaura parviflora Dougl.]

Riley County, Kansas

Annual or winter annual

Height: 1-9 feet

Family: Onagraceae - Evening Primrose Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July, August

Also Called:

Velvety gaura, small-flowered gaura.

Stems:

Erect, usually solitary, unbranched below inflorescence, densely glandular-hairy with few silky spreading hairs.

Leaves:

Alternate, simple, sessile, ovate-lanceolate, 1 to 5 inches long, .25 to 1.75 inch wide, soft-pubescent; margins wavy; tips tapering to points; lower stem leaves usually absent at flowering.

Inflorescences:

Spikes, elongate, 2 to 20 inches long, densely flowered, terminal; bracts lanceolate to linear, to 1/4 inch long, long spreading hairy.

Flowers:

Sepals 4, lance-oblong, glabrous or minutely pubescent, bent abruptly downward; petals 4, pink to rose, less than 1/8 inch long; stamens 8, anthers yellow or reddish; stigma with 4 short lobes.

Fruits:

Capsules, nutlike, 1/4 to 1/2 inch long, mostly glabrous; seeds 3-4, rust-colored.

Habitat:

Dry rocky hillsides, pastures, old fields, open woodlands, waste areas, and roadsides.

Distribution:

Nearly throughout Kansas.

Uses:

Native Americans used a liquid made from the roots of velvety gaura to treat snakebites, burns, and inflammations. They sometimes stewed the roots with meat.

Comments:

Velvet butterfly weed was formerly named Gaura parviflora.

Velvety gaura leaves