Stemless plants have a showy yellow flower on a floral tube to 6-inches long arising from a dense basal rosette of leaves. Note the buds with spreading (not joined) tips, the winged fruit capsules, and the flowers with 4 petals that open in the afternoon and fade to pink by the next morning.

FLOWERS: April–September. Four large, yellow petals 3/8–1 5/8-inches long (1–4 cm), that fade to pink; stamens unequal, style extends beyond the anthers and has 4 cross-like lobes, 4 sepals bend back against stem. Note the buds are tipped with tiny, finger-like, spreading (not joined) tips 1/16–3/16-inch long (1–5 mm). Fruit is a stemless, sharply 4-angled capsule, thick and hard.

LEAVES: Basal rosette, crowded with leaves. Blade appears hairless, pinnately lobed, size highly variable, oblong to linear in outline, 1–15 inches long (3–36 cm). Margin deeply cut with irregular lobes; the terminal lobe is longer but only slightly wider than the lower lobes.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly loam soils, meadows, floodplains, slopes, disturbed areas; shortgrass prairies, sagebrush scrub, pinyon-juniper, pine-Douglas fir, spruce–fir forests.

ELEVATION: 4,700–11,600 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NE, NV, NM, ND, SD, TX, UT, WA, WY.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Four stemless, yellow evening primroses in NM. Stemless Evening Primrose, O. triloba, uncommon in e. NM, has hairy, pinnately-lobed leaves but the terminal lobe is much broader than the lower lobes, snd the capsule is only partially winged. Short-fruit Evening Primrose, O. brachycarpa, primarily in so. NM, has entire to slightly-toothed, hairy leaves (see photo). O. primiveris, in so. NM, has very hairy, pinnately-lobed leaves, and united (not spreading) bud tips.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread except eastern plains in mid- to high-elevation habitats: Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Eddy, Harding, Lincoln, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sandoval, Sierra, Socorro, Taos, Union, Valencia.