Oenothera gauraW.L.Wagner & Hoch

biennial beeblossom

WFO wfo-0000509864 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Oenothera gaura, photographed by mefisher
fig. a mefisher, CC0 1.0 / 2021-10-20 / obs. 164621346
Oenothera gaura, photographed by Howard Williams
fig. b Howard Williams, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 162123551
Oenothera gaura, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. c Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 161784628
Oenothera gaura, photographed by tzeducation
fig. d tzeducation, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 161126215
Oenothera gaura, photographed by tzeducation
fig. e tzeducation, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 160838841
Oenothera gaura, photographed by tzeducation
fig. f tzeducation, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158860332
Oenothera gaura, photographed by Tom Lazar
fig. g Tom Lazar, CC0 1.0 / obs. 159866592
Oenothera gaura, photographed by Tom Lazar
fig. h Tom Lazar, CC0 1.0 / obs. 156894889

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 23 botanical countries

Regions where Oenothera gaura is native: Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Québec, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin ConnecticutIllinoisIndianaIowaKentuckyMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaOhioOntarioPennsylvaniaQuébecTennesseeVermontVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsin DelawareDistrict of Columbia
Native distribution of Oenothera gaura, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Connecticut CNT NORTHERN AMERICA
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kentucky KTY
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Ohio OHI
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Québec QUE
Tennessee TEN
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS

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 240 in flower of 249 examined

Peak flowering in Nov. Each bar is the share of Oenothera gaura 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. 240 of 249 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 7 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 5 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.

  • Gaura biennis L.
  • Gaura biennis var. biennis
  • Gaura biennis var. typica Munz
  • Gaura pitcheri Small
  • Gaura pitcheri Picker. ex Torr. & A.Gray

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.