Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Large-flower butterfly weed

LARGE-FLOWER BUTTERFLY WEED

File Size: 84 KB

Oenothera filiformis (Small ) W. L. Wagner & Hoch

[=Gaura longiflora Spach]

Greenwood County, Kansas

Annual or biennial

Height: 2-9 feet

Family: Onagraceae - Evening Primrose Family

Flowering Period: July, August, September,October

Also Called:

Large-flowered gaura.

Stems:

Erect, slender, usually single, usually much-branched above, densely hairy, sometimes glandular sticky; epidermis green or reddish green to brown.

Leaves:

Alternate, simple, sessile, broadly lanceolate to elliptic, basal withering before anthesis, 2 to 12 inches long, .4 to 1.4 inch wide, nearly glabrous or finely hairy; margins entire to wavy or dentate; stem blades lanceolate to elliptic, .6 to 6 inches long, 1/12 to 1 inch wide, margins entire or shallowly sinuate-denticulate, surfaces glabrate or minutely strigulose or villous along veins; tips tapering-pointed.

Inflorescences:

Spikes, long, slender, hairy, terminal.

Flowers:

Showy, sessile, about 1 inch long; sepals 4, to 3/5 inch long, reddish, appressed- or glandular-hairy, bent downward; petals 4, up to 3/5 inch long, white, fading pinkish, long-clawed; stamens 8, anthers red or yellow; style threadlike, stigma 4-lobed, extending past anthers.

Fruits:

Capsules, nutlike, up to 1/4 inch long, 4-angled; seeds 2-4, yellowish to rust colored, ovoid.

Habitat:

Rocky tallgrass and mixed-grass prairies, roadsides, railroad rights-of-way, fields, open woodlands, thickets, waste ground.

Distribution:

East 1/2 of Kansas.

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Large-flowered gaura has a winter rosette of leaves 2 to 12 inches across that withers by late spring.

Large-flower butterfly weed leaf