ONAGRACEAE (EVENING PRIMROSE FAMILY) 295 



parted white stigma ; ovary below the calyx- tube and four-celled. 

 The plant is good bee pasture, generous of both pollen and nectar. 

 Capsules two inches or more long, obscurely four-sided, reddish 

 brown, velvety-hairy when young, many-seeded, opening at the 

 summit. Seeds small and brown, tufted with white hair finer 

 than thistle-down, by which they are widely wind-sown. (Fig. 205.) 



Means of control 



Close cutting or hand-pulling before the development of seeds ; 

 destruction of the perennial roots by cultivation of the ground. 



COMMON EVENING PRIMROSE 



(Enothera biennis, L. 

 (finagra biennis, Scop.) 



Other English names: Field Primrose, Tree Primrose, Fever Plant, 



Night Willow-herb. 



Native. Biennial. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom: June to September. 

 Seed-time: August to November. 



Range: Labrador to Florida, westward to the Rocky Mountains. 

 Habitat: Dry soil; fields, meadows, roadsides, waste places. 



The long, stout taproot of this plant is used in Germany as a 

 table vegetable, like parsnips, and its young crown leaves are 

 blanched and used for salad. It is also medicinally valuable. 

 Collectors receive about five cents a pound for the plants pulled 

 entire in mid-flowering time and dried in the shade. 



Stem two to six or more feet tall, rather siqut, usually simple, 

 more or less hairy. Root leaves lance-shaped, three to six inches 

 long, the surface dark green, rough-hairy, slightly toothed, tapering 

 to a petiole; stem leaves much smaller, alternate and sessile. 

 Flowers in terminal leafy-bracted spikes, sessile, the calyx-tube 

 sometimes two inches long, its four lobes reflexed and falling 

 away; stamens eight, inserted on the top of the calyx-tube; 

 style with deeply four-cleft stigma ; ovary below the long calyx- 

 tube, itself much elongated and four-celled ; the four broad, sulfur- 

 yellow petals are rolled in the bud, and at the falling of twilight 

 their unfolding is so swiftly accomplished that one may " see her 



