Family: Onagraceae
Oenothera acaulis
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: Cav., Icon. 4:60, t. 399 (1798).
Description:
Perennial herb at first stemless, then with a few short procumbent branches to 15 cm long from the basal rosette, densely covered with short hairs; leaves with petioles 0.5-3 cm long; lamina oblanceolate, 5-20 x 0.6-6 cm, pinnately compound to lyrate-pinnatisect and in parts double-pinnatisect, with opposite lobes often unequal and with the large terminal part entire or toothed.
Inflorescence with sessile flowers borne singly in the axils of the leaf-like bracts; floral tube 10-11 cm long, cylindrical but gradually broadened below the calyx; sepals linear-lanceolate, 25-30 mm long, incompletely separating and bent to one side, covered with short hairs outside; petals broadly obovate, to 35 mm long, rounded to mucronate or emarginate, white fading to pink; stamens with filaments scarcely broadened towards the base; anthers dorsifixed and T-shaped, 12-13 mm long; ovary inferior, barrel-shaped, with 4 ridges; stigma with 4 slender lobes.
capsule c. 2 cm long, with hard wings at their broadest at about two-thirds of the length, covered with fine spreading hairs.
Published illustration:
Lindley (1824) Edwards' Bot. Reg. 9:t. 763.
Distribution:
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S.Aust.: NL, SL, SE. Native to Chile.
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Conservation status:
naturalised
Flowering time: Oct — Nov.; with flowers opening in the evening.
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SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia
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Biology:
No text
Taxonomic notes:
No recent records of this species are available. The exceptionally large flowers might be the reason why it has been referred to as O. grandiflora but that is a yellow-flowered species with cylindrical capsules.
Author:
Not yet available
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