When I first learned the name of this species, it was called the Missouri Evening Primrose, Oenotherea missouriensis. In the intervening 40 years, this plant has been reclassified to Oenothera macrocarpa and renamed Big Fruit Evening Primrose. Some refer to it as the Ozark Sundrop which I think is a prettier name than the other two choices. In the above image, you can see a typical example of the species in a limestone soil and grassy habitat. Also you can see some Greenthread flowers (Thelesperma filifolium) intermixed. Big Fruit Evening Primrose flowers can attain 4-5 inches diameters.

In the second image, you can see a partially open flower and part of an older flower that has begun to wilt. Note the difference in petal color. These flowers open for two consecutive nights and the intervening day as they are pollinated by Hawk Moths.(Moody-Weis and Heywood 2001)

In the third image, you can see a fully open flower. These are 4 to 5 inches in diameter and have a beautiful, butter yellow color. Notice the differences in length between the style of the pistil and the anthers. This helps to prevent self-fertilization. I used to think these flowers always had spiders leaving webs all over their anthers but Moody-Weis and Heywood, 2001 pointed out that this is a characteristic of these plants.

Besides their large flowers, one of the ways I tell these plants apart from the other primroses  in Texas is O. macrocarpa’s sepals get red spots on them and the other species do not. These plants can make beautiful additions to  locations in your native plant garden that receive full sun, subsist on local rainfall, and have limestone rich soil. They also feed numerous insects and especially native bees.

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Pictured here is an example of Oenothera triloba, the Stemless Evening Primrose. It belongs to the Evening Primrose Family, Onagraceae. This species makes beautiful yellow flowers up to 3 inches in diameter. Notice the leaves at the bottom center of this photo, they are broad and irregularly lobed. This is a character that makes this species easy to tell from other yellow Primroses in the field.

In the second image, you can see a fully open flower in the background left of center. Notice the sepals underneath the flower are fully reflected. This is another characteristic of this species that is useful for field identification. In the foreground, another flower has just started to open. Its sepals have separated but haven’t reflected.

Stemless Evening Primroses are open from late afternoon, through the night and closes mid-morning of the next day. The cloudy day when these photos were taken gave me extra time to catch these flowers doing their thing.

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The large pink and white flowers pictured here are Oenothera speciosa, also known as Pink Ladies. Some folks call them showy primroses or prairie primroses. Whatever common name you choose, these members of the Evening Primrose family (Onagraceae) are beautiful with their pink and white petals and yellow near the center of the flower.

Each flower has 4 broad petals and they are fragile and easily damaged. Within this species, petal color can range from rosy pink to nearly all white in color. Their alternately arranged leaves are 2 to 3 inches long and have coarsely toothed margins. Also, you will sometimes see that the leaves can be deeply lobed making them appear pinnately compound. This kind of leaf shape is called pinnatifid.

Primroses of all kinds have very distinctive long anthers on their stamens. The tops of their Pistils form a cross. These characters along with the 4 petaled flowers help make these prolific plants easy to identify.

In both images, you can also see a single bloom of Pyrrhopappus pauciflorus, the Small-flower Desert Chicory. Some folks call this member of the Daisy family (Asteraceae) the Texas Dandelion. The diameter of the flower pictured is between 1.5 and 2 inches which is much larger than your regular dandelion. Additionally, this species gets taller than regular dandelions. Unlike other Asteraceae, Texas Dandelions lack a button or disk flowers in the center of their blooms; instead, they only make the ray flowers, the ones with petals. As a result, Small-flower Desert Chicory look like larger versions of the familiar dandelion.

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This member of the Primrose family (Onagraceae) is now known as Scarlet Beeblossom (Oenothera suffrutescens) but used to be called Scarlet Gaura (Gaura coccinea). Also, White Gaura (Gaura lindheimeri) is now called Oenothera lindheimeri and has a new common name: Lindheimer’s Beeblossom. I relate all this because anyone using old field guides will struggle with identifying these plants because of the reclassification.

The plant pictured is most likely O. suffrutescens. However, be warned that white and scarlet gaura look basically the same, their flowers go through the same stages and their ranges overlap in Texas. White gaura is found in Texas and Lousiana while scarlet gaura goes all over the central US and into Canada. The reddish brown anthers on the tips of the 8 stamens indicates that the pictured plant is the scarlet gaura or Scarlet Beeblossom. If you had yellow anthers, you might have Lindheimer’ beeblossom. I invite you to visit NPIN and USDA websites to see their photos.

The flowers of these plants are short lived and their petals begin as white on the first day, pink on the second, and wither to scarlet on the third. So whatever color bloom you see, check the anthers; if they are reddish brown, you might have Scarlet Beeblossom.

These plants are found in grasslands or open woodlands and are often disguised by tall grasses or other wildflowers. They are perennial so you can return and see them at the same location each year if you’re so inclined.

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