White Evening Primrose Seeds (Oenothera pallida)

This plant does something kind of beautifully remarkable: Its big satiny white flowers (which open at night, then remain open into the morning) turn pink as they age. It doesn’t happen all at once, but rather sequentially over its late spring/early summer flowering period. The effect looks like an ornate sprawling mass of mixed white and pink blossoms, held aloft on deep red stems and fringed with variably shaped green leaves. It’s a sublime effect.

White evening primrose naturally occurs in very dry regions of the interior west, from eastern B.C., southeastward into the Sonoran Desert, preferring sandy soils across most of its native range. 

It is most certainly pollinated by moths (including hawkmoths), as well as a few crepuscular bees, and it's a caterpillar host plant of the enormous and magnificent Pacific green sphinx moth (Proserpinus lucidus)! Additionally, the seeds of this plant are food source for chukar and various western quail species.

Aside from semi-wild restoration plantings, white evening primrose also makes a perfectly lovely bedding plant in ornamental gardens – and most impressively – it has marvelous utility as a wild lawn plant for dry regions…especially combined with Idaho fescue, low-growing Yaak yarrow, poverty oatgrass, and other dry-site adapted species. The height range of this wildflower is about 4 to 18-inches, with most plants staying in the 6 to 8-inch range. Combined with a tendency to spread around a little from rhizomes, the result is a great, showy wildlife plant that can incorporate itself among tufty wild grasses. 

200+ Seeds (0.5 grams)