WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Unlike most Evening Primroses, this robust plant with reddish stems and branches reaches 8-feet tall. The upper portion branches with crowded spikes of showy, yellow flowers. Note the tall, leafy stems, and spikes with erect, hairy buds tipped with tiny free sepal tips, and the cross-shaped style that extends noticeably beyond the pollen anthers.

FLOWERS: June–September. Dense spikes of yellow flowers from upper leaf axils; floral tube 1–2-inches long (2.5-5 cm), 4 petals 1–2 1/2-inches long (2.5–6.5 cm); mature buds erect, hairy, with free sepal tips; stamens equal, style extends beyond the anthers and has 4 cross-like lobes.

LEAVES: Basal rosette and alternate on stem. Basal blades elliptic to lance-shaped, 4–12-inches long (10–30 cm) by 3/4–2-inches wide (2–5 cm) on long stems (petioles). Stem leaves 2–6-inches long (5–15 cm) with short petioles, margins entire, bluntly toothed, or wavy, leaves smaller upward.

HABITAT: Moist sandy, gravelly loam soils, meadows, ditches, streams, roadsides; pinyon-juniper, ponderosa, aspen-fir forests.

ELEVATION: 4,600–8,800 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, OK, TX, UT; other subspecies are widespread from Pacific coast to TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: 35 species of Oenothera in NM, some restricted to one or a few counties. The only other tall species, Hairy Evening Primrose, O. villosa, in similar habitats, has a style about the same length as the stamens. 

NM COUNTIES: Nearly statewide in moist mid- to high-elevation, moist habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Harding, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Los Alamos, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, Roosevelt, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Torrance, Union, Valencia.