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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