Oenothera avita (California evening primrose)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Oenothera avita, photographed by Kristen Francis — fig. a Kristen Francis, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-06 / obs. 204792772

Oenothera avita, photographed by Vasily Reinkymov — fig. b Vasily Reinkymov, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203622184

Oenothera avita, photographed by markhl — fig. c markhl, CC0 1.0 / obs. 201436363

Oenothera avita, photographed by Zachary Wimberly — fig. d Zachary Wimberly, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200540909

Oenothera avita, photographed by velodrome — fig. e velodrome, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202593316

Oenothera avita, photographed by LJ Moore-McClelland — fig. g LJ Moore-McClelland, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197426967

Oenothera avita, photographed by James M. Maley — fig. h James M. Maley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191027100

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 5 botanical countries

Native distribution of Oenothera avita, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.

Region	TDWG code	Continent
Arizona	ARI	NORTHERN AMERICA
California	CAL
Mexico Northwest	MXN
Nevada	NEV
Utah	UTA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 352 in flower of 376 examined

20%

87%

95%

97%

98%

88%

100%

90%

91%

Proportion of examined Oenothera avita in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	1	5	20%	4% to 62%
Feb	2	3	too few examined
Mar	13	15	87%	62% to 96%
Apr	112	118	95%	89% to 98%
May	110	113	97%	92% to 99%
Jun	63	64	98%	92% to 100%
Jul	15	17	88%	66% to 97%
Aug	6	6	100%	61% to 100%
Sep	18	20	90%	70% to 97%
Oct	10	11	91%	62% to 98%
Nov	1	1	too few examined
Dec	1	3	too few examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Oenothera avita observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 352 of 376 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 12 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

Anogra californica (S.Watson) Small
Oenothera albicaulis f. californica (S.Watson) Regel
Oenothera albicaulis var. californica S.Watson
Oenothera albicaulis var. melanosperma H.Lév.
Oenothera californica S.Watson
Oenothera californica subsp. avita W.M.Klein
Oenothera californica subsp. eurekensis (Munz & J.C.Roos) W.M.Klein
Oenothera californica var. avita (W.M.Klein) S.L.Welsh & N.D.Atwood
Oenothera californica var. glabrata Munz
Oenothera californica var. typica Munz
Oenothera deltoides subsp. eurekensis Munz & J.C.Roos
Oenothera pallida var. californica (S.Watson) Jeps.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol OECA2. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.