Biorepository Data Portal

Duration: Annual Nativity: Native Lifeform: Forb/Herb General: Erect annual with slender stem, 10-50 cm tall with glandular hairs and small coarse non-glandular hairs near inflorescence, reddish. Leaves: Basal and cauline, thin, 1.5-7 cm long by 1-15 mm wide, green to reddish with dark red spots, blades more or less elliptic, entire to sparsely and shallowly toothed or crenulate. Flowers: Racemose inflorescence to 20 cm long in fruit, narrowly funnelform hypanthium, cream-white inside, pink outside 2-2.5 mm, whitish, often with broad pink midstripe or markings, turning pink with age; flowers open near sunset. Fruits: Linear capsule, terete in cross section .5-.8 mm in diameter, 2.5-5 cm long, divariacate-spreading, glabrous and beakless at apex. Ecology: Found on arid hills and plains below 5,500 ft (1676 m); flowers February-June. Notes: Smallest flowered evening primrose in the Sonoran Desert region. Widespread. Pay attention to the small spots on the leaves, often quite variable in shape. Ethnobotany: Unknown, but other species in the genera have medicinal and culinary uses. Etymology: Camissonia is named for Ludolf Karl Adelbert von Chamisso (1781-1838) a German botanist, chamaenerioides is from root chamai, low-growing, dwarf added to something that looks like the genus Nerium.  Synonyms: Camissonia chamaenerioides, Oenothera chamaenerioides Editor: SBuckley, 2010