Oenothera suffrutescens

Wild honeysuckle, linda tarde, Linda Tarde

Family: Onagraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Wild honeysuckle is a naturalized perennial found in southern Mojave Desert Mountains and surrounding lowlands, including Tehachapi and southwestern California, on dry limestone slopes in Joshua-tree and pinyon/juniper woodland at elevations of 900 to 1,600 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces pale yellow to white flowers in slender stems with delicate, open blossoms. Growing with erect or spreading stems 10 to 120 centimeters tall, it has a woody, branched underground caudex with minute strigose hairs. Its narrow leaves range from 10 to 70 millimeters long, linear to narrow-elliptic, with entire or coarsely wavy-serrate edges. The fruit is an erect or spreading capsule 4 to 9 millimeters long with distinctive 4-angled sides.

Habitat: dry slopes, generally limestone, Joshua-tree or pinyon/juniper woodland

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 900-1600 m

Bioregions: s DMoj (DMtns and surrounding lowlands) (naturalized Teh, SW)

California counties: San Bernardino, Inyo, San Diego, Orange, Ventura, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Riverside

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