Oenothera wolfii
Oenothera sect. Oenothera
Wolf's evening-primrose
erect, green, flushed with red proximally or red throughout, unbranched or branches obliquely arising from rosette and sometimes secondary branches arising from main stem, 50–100 cm.
erect to ascending or decumbent, branched or unbranched.
in a basal rosette and cauline, basal 13–35 ×1.5–4(–5) cm, cauline 5–18 × 1–2.5(–4) cm;
blade dull green, flat, oblanceolate to narrowly lanceolate or lanceolate to elliptic, margins bluntly dentate or subentire, teeth widely spaced or sinuate proximally;
bracts persistent.
in a basal rosette and cauline, cauline (1–)3–25 cm;
blade margins pinnately lobed to sinuate-dentate, serrate to dentate or subentire.
erect, unbranched.
solitary flowers in axils of distal leaves, usually forming a dense or lax spike.
opening near sunset;
buds erect, 5–8 mmdiam., with free tips terminal, erect, 1–3 mm;
floral tube 30–46 mm;
sepals yellowish green, also usually flushed with red or red-striped, 17–28 mm;
petals yellow, fading orange, pale yellow and somewhat opaque, very broadly obcordate, 13–23 mm, conspicuously shorter than sepals;
filaments 12–20 mm, anthers 7–12 mm, pollen ca. 50% fertile;
style 43–58 mm, stigma usually slightly exserted beyond anthers or surrounded by them at anthesis.
opening near sunset, with a sweet scent or nearly unscented;
buds erect or recurved, terete or weakly quadrangular, with free tips;
floral tube 12–165(–190) mm;
sepals separating in pairs and reflexed, or splitting along only 1 suture and reflexed to one side as a unit, or separate and reflexed individually;
petals yellow, usually fading orange, reddish orange, yellow, or yellowish white, usually obcordate to obovate, sometimes rhombic, elliptic, or rhombic-ovate;
stigma deeply divided into 4 linear lobes.
erect or slightly spreading, dark dull green and sometimes red-striped when dry, narrowly lanceoloid, 30–48 × 5–7 mm, free tips of valves 0.5–2.5mm.
straight, curved, or somewhat sigmoid, becoming somewhat woody in age, cylindrical to narrowly lanceoloid or ovoid, terete to weakly 4-angled dehiscent nearly throughout their length;
sessile.
0.9–2 × 0.9–1.3 mm.
numerous, in (1 or) 2 rows per locule, prismatic and angled, narrowly to broadly ellipsoid to subglobose, rarely obovoid and obtusely angled, surface reticulate and regularly or irregularly pitted, rarely flat.
= 14.
= 14.
Oenothera wolfii
Oenothera sect. Oenothera
Oenothera wolfii is a PTH species and forms a ring of 14 chromosomes in meiosis, and is self-compatible and autogamous (W. Dietrich et al. 1997). It has plastome I and a AA genome composition. It is known only from the vicinity of Port Orford, Curry County, Oregon (currently apparently only as far north as Otter Rock), south in a scattered distribution through Del Norte County to the mouth of the Mattole River, Humboldt County, California. The distribution, at least in California, is closely associated with small patches of Cenozoic-age marine sediments, isolated from each other by Franciscan sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. Most populations appear to occur near river mouths or to the south of a headland. The largest populations center in the area about 11 km long in the vicinity of Crescent City in Del Norte County, between Point George and Enderts Beach in Redwood National Park. There are collections from two inland California localities, one at the eastern border of Humboldt County, California (Willow Creek, Trinity River Valley), and the other at Carville, Trinity County, that may be O. wolfii. If so, they would presumably represent recent introductions and should be studied further. As summarized by Dietrich et al., O. wolfii is a rare endemic of coastal habitats and known from about 20 different sites. The total number of individuals of O. wolfii apparently fluctuates, with perhaps no more than about 5000 individuals total. It is threatened by any potential development and alteration of its habitat, presently by road maintenance and foot traffic. Another possibly more serious threat comes from the recent spread of O. glazioviana to this area. Oenothera glazioviana could swamp populations through hybridization and, perhaps, by direct competition.
Oenothera wolfii is in the Center for Plant Conservation’s National Collection of Endangered Plants.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Species 68 (26 in the flora).
Section Oenothera is the largest section in the genus, consisting of 68 species (79 taxa) divided into six subsections, one of which is further divided into three series. Section Oenothera has a wide geographic distribution from Canada south to Panama and throughout temperate South America, essentially encompassing the full natural distribution of the genus, although there is very sparse representation (only O. elata) from central Mexico south to Panama. Species of this section occur in a variety of habitats, often disturbed ones, from sea level to 5000 m. Most of the species are self-compatible, but with a few self-incompatible taxa and individual populations of others (W. Dietrich et al. 1997; W. L. Wagner et al. 2007). The flowers are vespertine, fading the following morning, and are pollinated by hawkmoths (in O. versicolor Lehmann perhaps by hummingbirds), or autogamous. In sect. Oenothera, as in several other sections of the genus, the diploid, bivalent-forming, usually outcrossing, species often have relatively narrow geographic and ecological ranges, whereas closely related PTH species derived from them are usually autogamous and have much wider ranges. There are 37 PTH species in sect. Oenothera, which includes the majority of species of angiosperms with this anomalous genetic system.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Floral tubes 100–165(–190) mm; herbs perennial 17p. | O. subsect. Emersonia |
1. Floral tubes (5–)12–50(–160) mm; herbs annual, biennial, or short-lived perennial. | → 2 |
2. Seeds prismatic and angled, surface irregularly pitted 17p. | O. subsect. Oenothera |
2. Seeds ellipsoid to subglobose, not angled, surface regularly pitted. | → 3 |
3. Young flower buds nodding by recurved floral tube 17p. | O. subsect. Nutantigemma |
3. Young flower buds with floral tube curved upward or straight. | → 4 |
4. Petals rhombic to elliptic or rhombic-ovate 17p. | O. subsect. Candela |
4. Petals shallowly or deeply obcordate. | → 5 |
5. Young flower buds with floral tube curved upward 17p. | O. subsect. Raimannia |
5. Young flower buds with floral tube straight 17p. | O. subsect. Munzia |
CA
OR
Flora NW
PNW Herbaria
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
