Oenothera speciosa Nutt.
Perennial herb with creeping rhizomes. Aerial stems slender, erect, reddish, to c. 60 cm tall, glabrous towards the base, becoming densely hairy towards infl. with short, curly, antrorse hairs. Rosette lvs 0. Cauline lvs variable in dissection; lvs on short vegetative shoots small and entire with slender petiole to 1.5 cm long; lvs on reproductive shoots sinuate, pinnatisect in lower part and with short, indistinct, winged petioles; lamina 3-8 × 1-2.5 cm, lanceolate, oblanceolate or elliptic, glabrous or glabrate except when young or near infl.; base attenuate; apex obtuse. Fls several in a loose sessile spike, diurnal. Floral tube 1.5-2 cm long, narrow-cylindric, with hairs as on upper stems. Buds curving downwards, narrow. Sepals to 3.5 cm long, with erect, mucronate apices, with hairs as on upper stem. Petals 3.2-4 cm long, broad-obovoid, white or pink with yellow base, emarginate. Style exserted by 2.5-3 cm, very slender, often > stamens. Stigma lobes c. 1 cm long, filiform. Capsules not seen.
N.: near Kerikeri (N. Auckland), Dannevirke (Hawke's Bay).
S. U.S.A. and N. Mexico 1982
Coastal sites, beaches, gardens.
FL Nov-Apr.
O. speciosa is sometimes cultivated and may be troublesome in gardens owing to the freely running slender rhizomes which readily give rise to shoots. Var. childsii (Bailey) Munz from Texas and N. Mexico is sometimes treated as a separate sp.; N.Z. plants in some respects resemble this var. more than the northern var. speciosa, particularly in their slender vegetative shoots and tendency to have deep pink fls.
