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 Patterson, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Common Name: SUN CUP
Habit: Annual, from taproot; rosette generally +- 0. Leaf: cauline, alternate, simple, generally linear to narrowly elliptic. Inflorescence: bracted; spike or raceme, nodding in bud, erect in fruit, flowers only at distal nodes. Flower: radial, generally opening at dawn; sepals 4, reflexed singly or in pairs; petals 4, yellow, generally fading red, often with red basal spots; stamens 8, longer ones opposite sepals, anthers attached at middle, pollen grains 3-angled except in polyploid taxa, at 20×; ovary chambers 4, stigma hemispheric, generally > anthers and cross-pollinated, or +- = anthers and self-pollinated. Fruit: +- cylindric, straight to wavy, distorted by seeds at maturity, dehiscent throughout most of its length; pedicel +- 0 or <= 2(15) mm, 0 or shorter in flower. Seed: in 1 row per chamber, narrowly obovoid, smooth (minutely pitted), glossy.
Species In Genus: 12 species: western North America (especially CA-FP), 1 South America. Etymology: (L.A. von Chamisso, French-born German botanist, 1781--1838) Note: Polyploidy and self-pollination have predominated in evolution of genus. Not monophyletic as treated in TJM (1993); segregates moved to Camissoniopsis, Chylismia, Chylismiella, Eremothera, Eulobus, Neoholmgrenia, Taraxia, Tetrapteron (Wagner et al. 2007).
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: Slender; hairs 0, coarse, or glandular. Stem: decumbent or erect, 5--25(50) cm, peeling. Leaf: 5--30 mm, linear to narrowly elliptic or narrowly oblanceolate, minutely to coarsely serrate. Flower: hypanthium 1.5--5 mm; sepals 3--8(12) mm, remaining adherent in pairs; petals (3.5)5--15 mm, yellow fading +- red, basal spots (1)2; stigma exceeding anthers. Fruit: 20--43 mm, 0.7--2 mm wide, alternately narrow and swollen by seeds, straight or wavy, +- sessile. Seed: 0.8--1.6 mm. Chromosomes: 2n=14.
Note: Cross-pollinated. Subspecies intergrade extensively.