Skip to main content

Service Notice

The Western Australian Herbarium’s collections management system, WAHerb, and DBCA’s flora taxonomic names application, WACensus, have been set to read-only mode since 1 October 2025. Recent taxonomic changes are not currently being reflected in Florabase, herbarium collections, or the census. Due to the rapidly approaching holiday season and associated agency and facility soft closures, along with the substantial work involved in data mapping, cleaning, and verification, the migration to the new collection management software is not expected to occur before 1 March 2026, when a further update will be provided. Please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns.

The notice period started at 9:45 am on Friday, 12 December 2025 +08:00 and will end at 12:00 pm on Monday, 2 March 2026 +08:00.

Advanced Search

Onagraceae Juss.

Reference
Gen.Pl. [Jussieu] 317 (1789)
Name Status
Current
Image

Scientific Description

Common name. Evening Primrose Family.

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs and herbs, or trees (rarely, to 30 m); bearing essential oils, or without essential oils. Annual, or biennial, or perennial; plants with a basal concentration of leaves, or with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves. Hydrophytic, or helophytic, or mesophytic; when hydrophytic (Ludwigia), rooted. Leaves of Ludwigia emergent and floating; alternate, or opposite, or whorled; when alternate, spiral; petiolate to sessile; non-sheathing; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades dissected, or entire; when dissected, pinnatifid; pinnately veined; cross-venulate. Leaves with stipules, or without stipules. Stipules when present, intrapetiolar; free of one another; caducous. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Stem anatomy. Nodes unilacunar. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring, or anomalous; via concentric cambia, or from a single cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite (usually). Anemophilous, or entomophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary, or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in panicles, in racemes, and in spikes. Inflorescences terminal, or axillary. Flowers small to large; regular to very irregular; (2–)4(–7) merous; cyclic; tricyclic, or tetracyclic, or pentacyclic. Free hypanthium usually present (usually elongated). Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla (usually), or sepaline (the corolla sometimes absent); 4–8(–14); 1 -whorled, or 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx (2–)4(–7); 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; blunt-lobed; lobes valvate. Corolla (2–)4(–7) (rarely absent); 1 -whorled; polypetalous; imbricate, or contorted; yellow, or pink, or purple. Petals clawed (often), or sessile. Corolla members often bilobed (or trilobed). Androecium 8 (often), or 8–10, or 4, or 2, or 1. Androecial members adnate (to the hypanthium), or free of the perianth (on the disk); all equal, or markedly unequal; free of one another; 2 -whorled (often), or 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens, or including staminodes. Staminodes when present, 1, or 2–4; petaloid (Lopezia), or non-petaloid. Stamens (1–)8(–10); reduced in number relative to the adjacent perianth (rarely), or isomerous with the perianth, or diplostemonous. Anthers dorsifixed; versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; tetrasporangiate. Pollen shed in aggregates, or shed as single grains; with viscin strands (often), or without viscin strands; when in aggregates, in tetrads. Gynoecium 4(–7) carpelled. The pistil 2–7 celled. Carpels isomerous with the perianth. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious, or eu-syncarpous; inferior, or partly inferior. Ovary plurilocular; 4 locular (when inferior, usually — but the septa often imperfect below), or 3–7 locular (Ludwigia), or 2 locular (when half-inferior). Epigynous disk present. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; apical. Stigmas 1–4; wet type, or dry type; papillate, or non-papillate; Group II type, or Group III type, or Group IV type. Placentation axile, or parietal. Ovules 1–50 per locule (to ‘many’); pendulous, or ascending; non-arillate; anatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy (rarely), or non-fleshy; dehiscent, or indehiscent; a capsule (usually), or a berry, or a drupe, or a nut. The drupes with separable pyrenes. Capsules loculicidal, or septicidal. Fruit 2–100 seeded (usually ‘many’). Seeds non-endospermic; conspicuously hairy, or not conspicuously hairy; with a tuft of hairs (sometimes, in Epilobium), or without a tuft of hairs. Cotyledons 2. Embryo achlorophyllous (5/5); straight. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.

Physiology, biochemistry. Aluminium accumulation not found. Photosynthetic pathway: C3.

Geography, cytology, number of species. World distribution: cosmopolitan, except in arid parts of Australia and Africa. X = (6-)7(-18). 640 species.

Economic uses, etc. Most genera include species cultivated as ornamentals, with Fuchsia contributing many. Fuchsia berries are edible and good.