Common Name: EVENING-PRIMROSE FAMILY
Habit: Annual to perennial herb (to tree). Leaf: cauline or basal, alternate, opposite, or whorled, generally simple and toothed (to pinnately compound); stipules 0 or generally deciduous. Inflorescence: spike, raceme, panicle, or flowers 1 in axils; bracted. Flower: generally bisexual, generally radial, often opening at either dawn or dusk; hypanthium generally prolonged beyond ovary (measured from ovary tip to sepal base); sepals 4(2--7); petals 4(2--7, rarely 0), often fading darker; stamens 2 × or = sepals in number, anthers 2-chambered, opening lengthwise, pollen interconnected by threads; ovary inferior, chambers generally as many as sepals (sometimes becoming 1), placentas axile or parietal, ovules 1--many per chamber, style 1, stigma 4-lobed (or lobes as many as sepals), club-shaped, spheric, or hemispheric. Fruit: capsule, loculicidal (sometimes berry or indehiscent and nut-like). Seed: sometimes winged or hair-tufted.
Genera In Family: 22 genera, +- 657 species: worldwide, especially western North America; many cultivated (Clarkia, Epilobium, Fuchsia, Oenothera). Note: Gaura moved to Oenothera. Fuchsia magellanica Lam. naturalized in northern California.
eFlora Treatment Author: Warren L. Wagner & Peter C. Hoch, family description, key to genera, treatment of genera by Warren L. Wagner, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Robert W. Patterson, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Habit: Annual, occasionally perennial herb, from taproot. Leaf: basal and cauline, alternate, lanceolate to ovate, pinnately lobed with large terminal lobe (simple), margin dentate to entire, abaxial face and/or margin with +- conspicuous brown oil cells, long-petioled. Inflorescence: erect or nodding raceme. Flower: generally opening at dawn (occasionally at dusk); sepals 4, reflexed; petals 4, yellow or white (often fading orange-red) or lavender, generally fading red, if yellow generally strongly ultraviolet reflective, often with 1+ red spots near base, occasionally non-reflective near base or throughout; stamens (4)8, longer opposite sepals, anthers attached at middle, filaments long-ciliate or glabrous, pollen grains 3-angled at 20×; stigma entire and spheric or rarely conic-peltate, generally > anthers and cross-pollinated or +- = anthers and self-pollinated. Fruit: straight to curved, not twisted or coiled, valves with obvious midrib, pedicelled. Seed: in 2 rows per chamber, lenticular to narrowly ovoid, with +- pronounced membranous margin when immature.
Etymology: (Greek: juice) Note: Incl in Camissonia in TJM (1993).
eFlora Treatment Author: Warren L. Wagner
Reference: Wagner et al. 2007 Syst Bot Monogr 83:1--240
Unabridged Reference: Raven 1969 Contr US Natl Herb 37:161--396

Habit: Annual. Stem: 3--70 cm. Leaf: generally basal, generally 1-pinnate; terminal leaflet 8--90 mm, lanceolate to cordate; lateral leaflets < 25 mm or 0. Inflorescence: nodding. Flower: generally opening near dusk; hypanthium 1--6.5 mm; sepals 2--8 mm, free tips in bud present or not; petals 1.5--8 mm, yellow or white; stamens +- equal. Fruit: ascending or spreading, 8--38 mm, wider to tip, straight or curved; pedicel 4--40 mm. Seed: 0.6--1.5 mm. Chromosomes: 2n=14.
Note: Cross-pollinated; most complex, widespread sp. in genus; 11 subspecies, 8 in California.