Oenothera deltoides |
Oenothera rhombipetala |
|||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
basket evening-primrose, birdcage evening primrose, desert lantern, devil's lantern, dune primrose, hairy evening primrose, lion-in-a-cage |
fourpoint evening primrose |
|||||||||||||||||
Habit | Herbs usually winter-annual, sometimes perennial, glabrous, glandular puberulent, strigillose, and/or villous, sometimes more villous distally, hairs sometimes very curly, especially on flower parts; from a taproot or relatively long, fleshy roots. | Herbs biennial, densely to sparsely strigillose, sometimes also sparsely glandular puberulent distally. | ||||||||||||||||
Stems | central stem usually erect, usually thickened at base and spongy, branched or unbranched, branches few–several, slender, decumbent to ascending, from base, usually encircling central stem in older plants, 10–40(–100) cm. |
sometimes with lateral branches arising obliquely from rosette, 30–100(–150) cm. |
||||||||||||||||
Leaves | in a basal rosette and cauline, rosette usually well developed (except subsp. howellii), basal 5–25 × 1–5 cm, cauline 4–12(–18) × 0.5–4 cm; petiole 1.5–8 cm; blade rhombic-obovate, lanceolate, or oblanceolate, margins subentire, dentate, or pinnatifid. |
in a basal rosette and cauline, basal 6–20 × 0.6–2 cm, cauline 3–15 × 0.8–2.5 cm; blade narrowly oblanceolate, gradually narrowly elliptic to narrowly lanceolate, oblanceolate, or ovate distally, margins lobed to remotely dentate or subentire; bracts slightly longer than capsule they subtend. |
||||||||||||||||
Inflorescences | dense, usually without lateral branches, mature buds usually not overtopping spike apex. |
|||||||||||||||||
Flowers | 1–several opening per day near sunset; buds nodding, weakly or strongly quadrangular or fluted in distal 1/2, with free tips 0–9 mm; floral tube 20–40 mm; sepals (13–)15–35 mm, not spotted; petals white, fading pink to deep pink, broadly obovate or obcordate, 15–44 mm; filaments 8–15 mm, anthers 5–14 mm; style 35–60 mm, stigma exserted beyond anthers at anthesis. |
2–several per spike opening per day near sunset; buds erect, with free tips erect, 0.5–3 mm; floral tube slightly curved upward to ± straight, 30–45 mm; sepals 15–30 mm; petals yellow, broadly elliptic to rhombic-elliptic, 15–35 mm; filaments 13–25 mm, anthers 3–8 mm, pollen 85–100% fertile; style 25–50 mm, stigma exserted beyond anthers at anthesis. |
||||||||||||||||
Capsules | spreading, straight to curved, becoming somewhat woody in age, cylindrical to slightly 4-angled, widest toward base, tapering from base to apex, (15–)30–80 × 1.5–5 mm; sessile. |
narrowly lanceoloid, 13–25 × 2.5–3 mm. |
||||||||||||||||
Seeds | numerous, in 1 row per locule, buff with dark spots or black, narrowly obovoid, 1.5–2.8 mm. |
brown, sometimes flecked with dark red spots, ellipsoid, 1–1.7 × 0.4–0.7 mm. |
||||||||||||||||
2n | = 14. |
|||||||||||||||||
Oenothera deltoides |
Oenothera rhombipetala |
|||||||||||||||||
Phenology | Flowering May–Oct. | |||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Fields, prairies, sandy soil. | |||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 60–600(–1300) m. (200–2000(–4300) ft.) | |||||||||||||||||
Distribution |
w United States; nw Mexico
|
AR; CO; IL; KS; MI; MN; MO; NE; NM; OK; SD; TX; WI
|
||||||||||||||||
Discussion | Subspecies 5 (5 in the flora). Oenothera deltoides is self-incompatible or self-compatible (W. M. Klein 1964; W. L. Wagner et al. 2007; K. E. Theiss et al. 2010). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Oenothera rhombipetala is primarily a central plains species that has scattered localities in the Midwest to Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and barely entering the easternmost parts of Colorado and New Mexico. Oenothera rhombipetala had a broader delimitation (P. A. Munz 1965) until W. Dietrich and W. L. Wagner (1988) divided it into three species (O. clelandii, O. curtissii, and O. rhombipetala), with both of the split-off species being PTH. Evidence gathered by Dietrich and Wagner showed that these PTH species are geographically separated populations of small-flowered plants, and although they are very close morphologically, their distributions and morphological differences suggest that they were each derived independently from O. rhombipetala. Oenothera rhombipetala is self-incompatible. Oenothera pyramidalis H. Léveillé is a superfluous name and pertains here. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||||||||||||||
Key |
|
|||||||||||||||||
Source | FNA vol. 10. | FNA vol. 10. | ||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Onagraceae > subfam. Onagroideae > tribe Onagreae > Oenothera > sect. Anogra | Onagraceae > subfam. Onagroideae > tribe Onagreae > Oenothera > sect. Oenothera > subsect. Candela | ||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Anogra deltoides | O. heterophylla var. rhombipetala, O. leona, Raimannia rhombipetala | ||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Torrey & Frémont in J. C. Frémont: Rep. Exped. Rocky Mts., 315. (1845) | Nuttall ex Torrey & A. Gray: Fl. N. Amer. 1: 493. (1840) | ||||||||||||||||
Web links |