Early Season Primroses

Phloxes aren't alone as they spread across another season of wildflowers in places like southern California; chances are you're going to run into a nice variety of primroses. (Ya know, if Steve Martin's and Danny Ackroyd's Festrunk brothers were still around, and they were into botany, ya might hear 'em say, "Now are the Phlox - ezzzzz." Oh well.) When I say primroses, I mean members of the Evening Primrose Family (Onagraceae), a whole 'nother beast apart from the Primrose Family (Primulaceae), which we'll get to by and by. As a matter if fact, I'll get to more Evening Primroses as the season progresses ... that is, by and by.

Evening Primroses you might find in dry, sandy deserts in March include Brown-eyed Primrose (Camissonia claviformis and ssp. peirsonii), Woody Bottle-washer (C. boothi), California Evening Primrose (C. californica), Yellow Cups (C. brevipes), Mojave Sun Cup (C. campestris), Field Evening Primrose (C. dentata), Dune Primrose (Oenothera deltoides), Pale Primrose (O. pallida ssp. halli), White Evening Primrose (O. californica ssp. avita), Tufted Evening Primrose (O. caespitosa), Yellow Evening Primrose (O. primiveris ssp. bufonis), Desert Fuchsia (Zauschneria californica ssp. latifolia) and Scarlet gaura (Gaura coccinea). Pretty impressive list, huh? I didn't see all these myself, but I saw several, and as was the case with every wildflower I found in the desert, it was amazing to me. Absolutely amazing.

All of the species I found were easy to identify in terms of their family. The flowers all looked like the ol' familiar Evening Primroses from my yard in Ohio, four rounded petals, prominent bits in the middle, clearly Evening Primrose species. All the species I found had yellow flowers except for White Evening Primrose (duh). Some of them I found in the western Mojave Desert, in Red Rock Canyon and Short Canyon. I found California Evening Primrose in Anza-Borrego, while the Field Evening Primrose turned up in the fields of Crystal Cover, across the Pacific Coast Highway from the ocean.

White Evening Primrose has prominent flowers - to 2" across - with pinkish highlights at the base of the petals and a spray of obvious yellow stamens in the middle. The leaves are usually less than 2 and ½" long, and the plant does not achieve much height, like many desert plants.

Yellow Cups is a common spring-blooming species, flowers opening when it is about 2" tall. It will grow more than 2' tall later in the season if the rains were plentiful. Flowers have red dots at the base of the petals.

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