Oenothera species are native to North and South America, although they’ve naturalized in Europe and many other parts of the world.
With a wide range of habitats and climates that they call home, evening primroses are pretty tough flowers, with built-in durability against many environmental stressors that would make short work of weaker plants.
Evening primrose is so named for its habit of only showing its attractive blooms late in the day in a manner similar to four o’clock flowers, leaving them open until around mid-morning the following day, at which point the flowers expire.
But while each individual bloom doesn’t last for very long, new flowers will take the place of old ones throughout the blooming period.
Since the flowers are open during the later hours, they’re often visited by pollinators of the night, including various types of moths and vespertine bees.
After pollination, the blooms eventually give way to four-capsuled, seed-bearing fruits.
Evening primroses aren’t just pretty, they can also be useful.
Native Americans used the whole of O. biennis for food and treating bruises, and also used its roots specifically for treating hemorrhoids.
The leaves were traditionally used for tending to minor wounds, gastrointestinal issues, and sore throats.
There, O. biennis found many different medicinal applications, earning nicknames such as “king’s cure-all” and “fever-plant.”
Today, oil pressed from the seeds of O. biennis is marketed in capsule form to help a number of conditions including eczema, rheumatoid arthritis, premenstrual syndrome, and osteoporosis.
