Oenothera curtiflora

Oenothera curtiflora
Apparently Secure
Apparently Secure (NatureServe)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
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
List
    • Gaura australis
    • Gaura hirsuta
    • Gaura micrantha
    • Gaura mollis
    • Gaura parviflora
    • Schizocarya micrantha

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.

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, and this was accepted by the International Botanical Congress Committee for Spermatophyta. In 2007 it was moved to the genus Oenothera by Warren Lambert Wagner and Peter Coonan Hoch as Oenothera curtiflora. The genus Gaura created by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 is a synonym of Oenothera according to Plants of the World Online (POWO).

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

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.

Uses

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

Introduction

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

References

  1. 1 2 NatureServe (1 August 2025). "Gaura mollis". NatureServe Explorer. Arlington, Virginia. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 "Oenothera curtiflora W.L.Wagner & Hoch". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  3. ↑ "Oenothera curtiflora". Germplasm Resources Information Network. Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 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." Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  7. ↑ Jepson Flora: Gaura parviflora
  8. ↑ Southwest Environmental Information Network: Gaura mollis [dead link]
  9. ↑ Wildflowers of Tucson: Gaura mollis Archived 2006-11-28 at the Wayback Machine
  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