Seabeach Evening Primrose

(Oenothera humifusa)

 

   

 

 

Color Photograph: NRCS Plants Database, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Line Drawing: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Second Edition.

 

Seabeach Evening Primrose (Oenothera humifusa Nutt.)

Identification: Plant usually (but not always) reclining on the ground. Flowers yellow, large, with 4 petals and 8 stamens. Stigma with 4 lobes, cross-shaped. Calyx with 4 sepals, the sepals bent downward (reflexed). Seed capsules narrow, elongate, sessile to the stem in the leaf axils. Stem either reclining on the ground or semi-erect. Stem and leaves covered with whitish, woolly hairs. Leaves elongate, pubescent, and with raggedly toothed outer margins. Stem 8 to 18 inches in length.

Distribution: Found along the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Louisiana.

Habitat: Seabeach Evening Primrose is found along the beaches of the Atlantic coast.

Flowering period: June to September.

Similar Species: The whitish, pubescent stem and leaves are distinctive.

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