Common evening-primrose

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Common evening-primrose inflorescence

Common evening-primrose

Common evening-primrose leaves and fruit

Common evening-primrose fruit

Common evening-primrose flowers

Common evening-primrose stem pubescence

Common evening-primrose leaves

Common evening-primrose

Morphology

Stem

Erect, usually branched proximally or distally, short appressed hairy, often also with spreading, red-pustulate hairs; epidermis green, not exfoliating.

Leaves

Basal and cauline, alternate; basal leaves often withering before anthesis, petiolate, blade oblanceolate, 2.5 to 12 inches long, .4 to 2.8 inches wide, margins wavy-lobed, nearly entire or denticulate; cauline leaves sessile, blade lanceolate to elliptic, 1 to 6 inches long, .6 to 2 inches wide, margins denticulate to wavy, surfaces glabrous or canescent.

Inflorescence

Terminal spikes; bracts lanceolate, oblong, or ovate, .4 to 1.2 inch long.

Flower

Radially symmetric; hypanthium .8 to 2 inches, glandular-puberulent and antrorsely puberulent; sepals 4, deciduous, absent on fruit, reflexed, linear-lanceolate, .4 to 1 inch, tips distinct or connate at anthesis; petals 4, yellow, fading orange or cream, obovate, .4 to 1 inch, apex slightly notched; stamens 8, anthers .25 to .28 inch; stigma positioned at about same level as anthers, deeply 4-lobed, lobes .12 to .25 inch.

Fruit

Capsules, dehiscent, ascending or erect, lanceoloid, .6 to 1.6 inches long, .14 to .25 inch wide, straight, not winged, strigose to nearly glabrous. Seeds many per fruit, reddish brown, irregularly prismatic and angled, .05 to .06 inch, irregularly ridged and pitted, without coma.

Ecology

Habitat

Pastures, roadsides, open woodlands, shores of ponds and lakes, disturbed sites.

Distribution

Principally the east third of Kansas

Practical Information

Uses

Native Americans used the seeds for food, cooked and ate the leaves as greens, boiled the roots like potatoes, and soaked the plant and applied it as a poultice to bruises (Moerman 1998).

Additional Notes