Species
+

Oenothera fruticosa L.

Narrow-leaf Evening-primrose, Narrowleaf Evening Primrose, Narrowleaf evening primrose (EN), Shrubby sundrops

Climate known 24 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Oenothera fruticosa, the narrowleaf evening primrose or narrow-leaved sundrops, is a species of flowering plant in the evening primrose family.

Text from Wikipedia, “Oenothera fruticosa”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Oenothera

Oenothera is a genus of about 160 species of herbaceous flowering plants native to the Americas. The genus includes the plants known as common evening primrose, narrow-leaved sundrops and white gaura. It is the type genus of the family Onagraceae. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Oenothera”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Onagraceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma +22
Wild records
1570 in range· 690 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Jul, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1198mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 118 mm (CHELSA)
Light
13–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to September and December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1198 mm a year, wettest July at 118 mm, driest February at 83 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -11.5 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Kneiffia allenae (Britton) Small; Kneiffia allenii (Britton) Small; Kneiffia angustifolia Spach; Kneiffia arenicola Small; Kneiffia brevistipata (Pennell) Munz and 45 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to September and December in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (843 mm of 1198 mm) takes 8 months, March to September and December. Mean temperature moves 23.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to March and June.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1198 mm a year, wettest July at 118 mm, driest February at 83 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1198 mm a year at the habitat, 843 mm of it March to September and December. Wettest month July at 118 mm, driest February at 83 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1057 mm to 1456 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 40 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 10, the highest 90th-percentile month 41).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -11.5 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -11.5 °C, the absolute minimum -22.2 °C, about 87 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -1.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells -8.0 °C to 3.5 °C), warmest day 30.0 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -11.5 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 60% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 6 °C in Jan to 30 °C in Jul; mean night from -2 °C in Jan to 21 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1198 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1077 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -22.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 32.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost32.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-22.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 13–40RH 56–60 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1077 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C6 / -0–138 / 2–1513 / 7–1919 / 13–2323 / 18–2728 / 23–3130 / 26–3229 / 25–3126 / 21–2919 / 15–2314 / 9–198 / 2–14
Night °C-2 / -8–4-0 / -7–53 / -3–88 / 3–1213 / 9–1718 / 15–2121 / 17–2321 / 17–2317 / 13–2011 / 7–146 / 2–91 / -5–5
Rain mm87 / 68–12383 / 65–133106 / 80–13997 / 80–122105 / 82–135109 / 95–134118 / 97–144109 / 89–134102 / 88–12393 / 80–11792 / 78–12197 / 76–129
DLI15 / 12–1720 / 18–2227 / 25–2934 / 31–3738 / 36–4040 / 38–4138 / 38–4134 / 33–3729 / 26–3123 / 19–2516 / 12–1913 / 10–16
RH %58 / 56–6257 / 55–6056 / 55–5856 / 54–5757 / 56–6059 / 57–6160 / 58–6260 / 58–6359 / 58–6158 / 57–6058 / 57–6058 / 57–61

Each figure is the median across the 1077 grid cells holding the 1443 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1000:2118 (39.975, -74.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -22.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -11.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.5 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1077 distinct grid cells holding the 1443 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1000:2118 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 40.00_-74.375, lapse-corrected -25 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeIllinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, District of Columbia· introduced: Austria, Germany
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker35.898, -79.073 · in the densest population, 1110 records (71% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1570 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 690 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 66 km away. 137 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 127 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1570 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Oenothera fruticosaOenothera fruticosaOenothera fruticosaOenothera fruticosaOenothera fruticosaOenothera fruticosaOenothera fruticosaOenothera fruticosa

Photographs: Becky Dill, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF (2); mfeaver, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Will McFarland, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (5).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Oenothera fruticosa, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Pollination Intensity and Seed Set in the Evening Primrose (Oenothera fruticosa)
John A. Silander, Richard B. Primack (1978) · The American Midland Naturalist
Pollination, Predation and Seed Set in Linaria vulgaris (Scrophulariaceae)
Robert M. Arnold (1982) · The American Midland Naturalist
Growth and Development of Oenothera fruticosa Is Influenced by Vernalization Duration, Photoperiod, Forcing Temperature, and Plant Growth Regulators
Emily Clough, Arthur C. Cameron, Royal D. Heins, William H. Carlson (2001) · Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Pollen limitation of native plant reproduction in an urban landscape
Adrian L. Carper, Paige S. Warren, Lynn S. Adler, Rebecca E. Irwin (2022) · American Journal of Botany
Causes and consequences of variation in heterospecific pollen receipt in Oenothera fruticosa
Gerard X. Smith, Mark T. Swartz, Rachel B. Spigler (2021) · American Journal of Botany
New combinations, rank changes, and nomenclatural and taxonomic comments in the vascular flora of the southeastern United States. IV
Alan S. Weakley, Bruce A. Sorrie, Richard J. LeBlond, Derick B. Poindexter (2018) · Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas
Two new neophytes in the flora of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Semir Maslo, Šemso Šarić (2022) · Glasilo Future
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Oenothera 8 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 19 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: filled 2026-09-20
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 101 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.