There are several kinds of Anogra, resembling Onagra, but with white
or pink flowers and the seeds differently arranged; the stems often
clothed with papery bark; the buds drooping. The name is an anagram of
Onagra.
[Sidenote: =Prairie Evening Primrose=
_Anogra albicàulis. (Oenothera)_
=White
Spring, summer
Southwest, etc.=]
A conspicuous kind, often growing in large patches, with whitish,
downy, branching stems, from a few inches to a foot tall, often with
shreddy bark, and downy, pale bluish-green leaves, more or less
toothed. The drooping, downy buds are tinted with reddish-pink and the
lovely flowers are from one and a half to three inches across, with
pure white petals, tinted with yellow at base, changing to pink after
pollination and fading to crimson. The stamens have cobwebby threads,
white filaments, and yellow anthers, the pistil is green and the curved
capsule is downy or hairy. The whole color scheme, of pale sea-green
foliage, reddish buds, and white, rose-color, and crimson flowers, is
delicate, harmonious, and effective. This grows in sandy places, and on
the prairies from Dakota to Mexico.
[Sidenote: =Cut-leaved Evening Primrose=
_Anogra coronopifòlia (Oenothera)_
=White
Summer, autumn
Ariz., Utah, etc.=]
A pretty plant, with an erect, leafy stem, six inches to two feet
tall, springing from running rootstocks, and pale green, more or less
downy, leaves, finely cut into numerous, small, narrow lobes, so that
they look like rather dry little ferns. The delicate flowers are the
usual Evening Primrose shape, about an inch across, in the axils of
the leaves, with pure white petals, greenish at the base and turning
pink in fading, and a calyx-tube two inches long, with turned-back,
pinkish-green lobes. The anthers are brown, the pistil green, the
throat of the corolla is closed by a fringe of white hairs, the buds
are drooping and the capsule is oblong and hairy. This is common on
prairies and plains, from Nebraska to Utah, and south to New Mexico,
reaching an altitude of nine thousand feet.
[Illustration: Prairie Evening Primrose--Anogra albicaulis.]
There are several kinds of Onagra, differing from Anogra in having
yellow flowers and in the arrangement of the seeds; with stems;
leaves alternate, with wavy or toothed margins; buds erect; flowers
night-blooming, in terminal clusters; calyx-tube long; petals four;
stamens eight, equal in length; stigma four-cleft; capsule four-angled,
more or less tapering.
[Sidenote: =Evening Primrose=
_Ónagra Hóokeri (Oenothera)_
=Yellow
Summer
West=]
A fine biennial, with stout, leafy stems, from three to six feet
high, bearing splendid flowers, over three inches across, with clear
yellow petals, fading to pink, and reddish calyx-lobes. The leaves,
stems, and buds all downy and the buds erect. The stigma has four,
slender lobes, forming a little cross, and the yellow pollen is loosely
connected by cobwebby threads, clinging to visiting insects, and is
thus carried from flower to flower; the capsule is an inch long. This
is much handsomer than the common Evening Primrose, _O. biénnis_, and
especially fine in Yosemite. As the mountain shadows begin to slant
across the Valley the blossoms commence to open, until the meadows are
thickly strewn with "patens of bright gold." They stay open all night,
withering with the noonday sun.
There are several kinds of Lavauxia; low, usually stemless; leaves
mostly from the root; calyx-tube slender; petals four; stamens eight,
the alternate ones longer; ovary short, stigma four-cleft; capsule
stout, four-angled or winged.
[Sidenote: =Sun-cups=
_Lavaùxia primivèris (Oenothera)_
=Yellow
Spring
Arizona=]
An attractive little plant, in the desert, with no stem, the flowers
with long, slender calyx-tubes, resembling stems, springing from a
clump of rather downy root-leaves. The buds are hairy and the flowers
are about an inch across, light yellow, with pale yellow stamens and
stigma. This plant varies a good deal in size, bearing one or several
flowers, and the margins of the leaves almost toothless or irregularly
slashed. It superficially resembles _Taráxia ovàta_, the Sun-cups so
common on the southwestern coast, for the flowers have the same little
fresh, sunny faces, but the latter has a round-topped stigma.
[Illustration: Evening Primrose--Onagra Hookeri.