Lady of the Night

While speeding down certain highways at this time of year, you periodically see what look like small clusters of discarded pink Kleenex alongside the roadway. Slow down and the sight will almost always resolve into a patch of spent white evening primrose blossoms. Unless it is early morning or an overcast day, in which case the white flowers may still be near their prime.

Fortunately, this plant sits across the street from my house and I was able to follow a single blossom through its one-day cycle. Here at dusk, the tightly wound flower begins to unfurl.

By the time the flower was part way open, flash was necessary. Like most night-blooming white flowers, the evening primrose tries to entice insects with periodic puffs of a lavender-like scent.

Here's what I saw at about 10 a.m. this morning. For some reason, this particular patch of primrose has escaped the notice of the javelina, who love the somewhat fleshy roots -- they almost always destroy any plants I manage to get started up my hillside.

By the time I was setting off for a walk downtown at 2 p.m., the new blossom was completely spent. If you look closely, you'll see that the flower is connected to the heart of the plant by a long tube, rather than a stem; hence, its name -- stemless evening primrose. The seed pods are tight against the center of the plant.Why this species -- native to the Western hemisphere -- is called primrose, I've no idea. No relationship to the Old World primrose, in any event.

In the Prescott area, I've seen the tall Hooker's evening primrose out at Granite Basin Lake and elsewhere; pretty little ground-hugging yellow sundrops occur near Watson Lake and out the Perkinsville Road. For further info about the species, start with Wikipedia.