WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

 

Spreading, sprawling, sparsely hairy, and white to pink stems up to 2-feet long form rounded 1-foot tall mounds covered with numerous white flowers. Note the flower’s style, is tipped with cross-shaped lobes and extends beyond the anthers, the mature red-striped buds nod, end in a sharp point, and the mouth of the floral tube is hairless (use lens).


FLOWERS: April–May. The 1 1/2–3-inch wide (38–76 mm) flowers have 4 heart-shaped petals and bloom in the axils of the upper leaves. The floral tube, 5/8–1 1/8-inches long (15–30 cm), has no hair in the mouth; stamens equal, the style has 4 cross-shaped lobes that extend beyond the 8 anthers; 4 sepals beneath the flower, 1/2–1-inch long (12–25 mm), slightly hairy, lance-shaped to linear with red margins, bent abruptly backward against the stem. The torpedo-shaped buds droop until opening and have distinct red stripes, and tips fully united into a point (not spreading). Flowers open in the evening and remain open several days, then fade to pink. Fruit a narrow cylindrical capsule to 1 1/2-inch long (4 cm).


LEAVES: Basal rosette with lance- to spoon-shaped leaves with long stems (petioles). Alternate stem leaves sessile (stemless); blades stiff, hairy, lance-shaped, 1/2–4-inches long (1.2–10 cm); margins wavy to deeply lobed along the midrib. 


HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, clay soils, sandhills, roadsides, disturbed areas; desert grassland, pinyon-juniper, ponderosa woodlands.


ELEVATION: 4,000–8,000 feet.


RANGE: Widespread at mid-elevations: TX and AZ north to MT and SD.


SIMILAR SPECIES: 35 species of Oenothera in NM, some restricted to one or a few counties, with 7 white evening primrose species. Another white species, Crownleaf Evening Primrose, O. coronopifolia, has a hairy throat. The sprawling Tufted Evening Primrose, O. caespitosa, has erect buds and flowers with a hairy throat. Pale Evening Primrose, O. pallida, nearly statewide, has bushy, arching stems to 16-inches tall, nodding red buds with spreading tips, and white flowers with a hairless, yellow-greenish throat. Engelmann’s Evening Primrose, O. engelmannii, in southern and eastern NM, is densely hairy with woolly-hairy, nodding buds.


NM COUNTIES: Statewide, except De Baca and Lea counties, in low- to mid-elevation, dry habitats.

PRAIRIE  EVENING  PRIMROSE

OENOTHERA ALBICAULIS

Evening Primrose Family, Onagraceae

Annual herb

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Buds are hairy, striped, nodding downward (upper arrow); tips are united into a point (lower arrow).

The throat of the floral tube is hairless (use lens) (upper arrow).

The stigma is longer that the stamens (lower arrow).

Stems sparsely hairy, white to pink (arrow).

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