Oenothera laciniata

Cutleaf evening primrose

Family: Onagraceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Cutleaf evening primrose is a naturalized annual or short-lived perennial herb found in coastal western, southwestern, and Mojave Desert regions in open, sandy, disturbed places at elevations generally below 500 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces bright yellow flowers that fade to orange, with petals 5 to 22 millimeters long. Growing with decumbent to erect stems 0.5 to 5 decimeters tall, it forms a distinctive rosette with minutely strigose hairs and occasional long, spreading glandular hairs. Its cauline leaves are 2 to 10 centimeters long, narrowly oblanceolate to elliptic, ranging from nearly entire to pinnately lobed. The fruit is a distinctive cylindrical capsule 20 to 50 millimeters long and 2 to 4 millimeters wide.

Habitat: Open, generally sandy, disturbed places

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: generally < 500 m

Bioregions: CW, SW, DMoj

California counties: Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Merced, Fresno, Santa Barbara, Stanislaus, Orange, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Alameda, Ventura, Contra Costa

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.