Oenothera biennis (Evening Pri)

Common Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis) is the lemon-yellow biennial of North American roadsides and meadows, a robust three-to-five-foot plant that grows a first-year basal rosette of strap-shaped leaves, then explodes into a second-year flowering stalk that blooms from June through September. The flowers open at dusk, four bright yellow petals each, lightly fragrant, and stay open through the night before fading the following morning.

The headline ecology is the moth pollination. Sphinx moths and other hawkmoths fly the dusk shift, hovering at the flowers and drawing nectar from a long floral tube. Native bees and bumblebees pick up the morning shift before the petals close. The seed pods ripen in fall and become a goldfinch favorite, also feeding juncos, sparrows, and mourning doves through winter.

The roots and seeds are edible. Eastern Indigenous peoples (Iroquois, Cherokee, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, others) have boiled the first-year roots as a parsnip-like vegetable for generations, and the seeds are pressed for evening primrose oil, used historically and still sold in herb shops.

Native to Eastern and Central North America. Naturalized widely across the continent including the PNW, where it is common on roadsides and disturbed open ground.

Deer-resistant. Tough fibrous foliage with mild peppery taste is generally avoided by deer.

A reseeding biennial: plant once, allow some seed to set, and you have a self-perpetuating patch. Beautiful in informal meadow settings with goldenrod, asters, native grasses, and Solidago.