Evening Primrose

The common evening primrose is a biennial of the evening-primrose family, Onagraceae,, native to eastern and central North America and now established on every continent but Antarctica. In its first year it lies low as a rosette of leaves over a thick root; in its second it sends up a stem to about 1.6 metres, bearing yellow, four-petalled flowers that open quickly at dusk, last only until the next noon, and are followed by narrow capsules full of tiny seeds that can stay alive in the soil for seventy years. Kynes notes the faint glow of the petals on a dark night and suggests this is why the plant found its way into magic. The Cherokee, Apache and Ojibwe ate it and used it as medicine, colonists took up the habit, and it reached the gardens of Europe in the early seventeenth century. Its English name borrows from the true primrose, which its flower resembles. In France and Germany it was said to quieten savage animals, and because the root smells faintly of wine, European legend had it either undoing the effects of drink or bringing on a thirst for it; whether the genus name means wine-hunting or wine-scented is still argued. Cunningham records that Native Americans rubbed it on their moccasins and bodies for a good hunt and to keep snakes away.