Biology:Oenothera curtiflora

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Short description: Plant species in the evening primrose family

Oenothera curtiflora

Apparently Secure (NatureServe)[1]
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Myrtales
Family: Onagraceae
Genus: Oenothera
Species:
O. curtiflora
Binomial name
Oenothera curtiflora
W.L.Wagner & Hoch
Synonyms[2]

Oenothera curtiflora (syn. Gaura parviflora), known as velvetweed, velvety gaura, downy gaura, or smallflower gaura, is a species of flowering plant native to the central United States and northern Mexico, from Nebraska and Wyoming south to Durango and Nuevo Leon.[3]

Taxonomy

Oenothera curtiflora was long known as Gaura parviflora, this name being published in 1830 and for a long time considered the correct name for the species. However, an overlooked but validly published name G. mollis had been published earlier by Edwin James in 1823. A proposal was made to conserve the name G. parviflora over G. mollis,[4] and this was accepted by the International Botanical Congress Committee for Spermatophyta.[5] In 2007 it was moved to the genus Oenothera by Warren Lambert Wagner and Peter Coonan Hoch as Oenothera curtiflora.[2] The genus Gaura created by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 is a synonym of Oenothera according to Plants of the World Online (POWO).[6]

Oenothera curtiflora has 9 synonyms, six of them species, according to POWO.[2]

Table of Synonyms
Name Year Rank Notes
Gaura australis Griseb. 1879 species = het.
Gaura hirsuta Scheele 1848 species = het.
Gaura micrantha (Spach) D.Dietr. 1840 species = het.
Gaura mollis E.James 1823 species = het., nom. utique rej.
Gaura parviflora Douglas ex Lehm. 1830 species ≡ hom.
Gaura parviflora var. typica Munz 1938 variety ≡ hom.
Gaura parviflora f. glabra Munz 1938 form = het.
Gaura parviflora var. lachnocarpa Weath. 1925 variety = het.
Schizocarya micrantha Spach 1835 species = het.
Notes: ≡ homotypic synonym; = heterotypic synonym

Description

It is an annual plant growing to 0.2–2 m (rarely 3 m) tall, unbranched, or if branched, only below the flower spikes. The leaves are 2–20 cm (0.79–7.87 in) long, lance-shaped, and are covered with soft hair. The flower spikes are 20–30 cm (7.9–11.8 in) long, covered with green flower buds, which open at night or before dawn with small flowers 5 mm (0.20 in) diameter with four pink petals.[7][8][9]

Uses

Among the Zuni people, fresh or dried root would be chewed by medicine man before sucking snakebite and poultice applied to wound.[10]

Introduction

It is naturalized and often invasive in other parts of the United States, and in Australia, China, Japan, and South America.[1][11][12]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 NatureServe (1 August 2025). "Gaura mollis" (in en). Arlington, Virginia. https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.138121/. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Oenothera curtiflora W.L.Wagner & Hoch" (in en). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/77092903-1. 
  3. {{citation | mode = cs1 | title = Oenothera curtiflora | work = Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) | url = | publisher = [[Organization:Agricultural Research ServAgricultural Research Service (ARS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) | access-date = 21 January 2018 }}
  4. Wagner, W. L., & Hoch, P. (2000). Proposal to Reject the Name Gaura mollis (Onagraceae). Taxon 49 (1): 101-102.
  5. Brummitt, R. K. (2001). Report of the Committee for Spermatophyta: 52. Taxon 50 (4): 1179-1182.
  6. "Gaura L." (in en). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/30005178-2. 
  7. Jepson Flora: Gaura parviflora
  8. Southwest Environmental Information Network: Gaura mollis
  9. Wildflowers of Tucson: Gaura mollis
  10. Camazine, Scott and Robert A. Bye 1980 A Study Of The Medical Ethnobotany Of The Zuni Indians of New Mexico. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 2:365-388 (p. 377)
  11. Flora of China: Gaura parviflora
  12. PlantNet (Australia): Gaura parviflora

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