Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Large-flower cut-leaf evening-primrose

LARGE-FLOWER CUT-LEAF EVENING-PRIMROSE

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Oenothera grandis (Britton ) Smyth

Sandsage Bison Range, Finney County, Kansas

Anual

Height: 8-30 inches

Family: Onagraceae - Evening-primrose Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July, August, September,October

Stems:

Decumbent to erect, usually much-branched proximally, sometimes simple, strigulose and lanate; epidermis green or greenish white. Plants caulescent, not caespitose.

Leaves:

Basal and cauline, alternate; basal long-petiolate, blade oblanceolate, 4 to 12 inches long, 2/5 to 2 inches wide, margins irregularly dentate; cauline short-petiolate or sessile, blade lanceolate to oblanceolate or elliptic, 4/5 to 3.6 inches long, 1/8 to 1.25 inch wide, sinuate-dentate to sinuate or pinnately lobed, rarely entire, surfaces glabrate or strigulose.

Inflorescences:

Flowers solitary, axillary.

Flowers:

Radially symmetric; hypanthium 1 to 2 inches, sparsely to densely villous; sepals 4, lanceolate, .8 to 1.2 inch, coherent and reflexed to 1 side at flowering; petals 4, yellow, often fading pink, obcordate, .8 to 1.6 inch, apex rounded; stamens 8; anthers .28 to .35 inch; stigma positioned above anthers, deeply 4-lobed, lobes .2 to .5 inch.

Fruits:

Capsules, dehiscent, ascending, cylindric, 4 to 20 inches long, .8 to 1.2 inch wide, straight or slightly curved, not ribbed or winged, strigulose and villous; seeds many per fruit, golden brown, asymmetrically ellipsoid to subglobose, 0.3 to .06 inch, pitted.

Habitat:

Sandy mixed-grass and shortgrass prairies, sand prairies, pastures, roadsides, fields, and disturbed sites.

Distribution:

West 4/5 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Oenothera, from Greek oinos, "wine," and thera, "to imbibe," because a related European plant was thought to stimulate a taste for wine and grandis, large, alluding to the flowers.

Large-flower cut-leaf evening-primrose