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Onagraceae FAMILY

Oenothera odorata

Oenothera odorata

Edibility
1/5
Medicinal
0/5

Safety & Hazards

None known

Cultivation Details

HabitPerennial
Growth—

Prefers a dryish well-drained sandy loam and full sun[1, 2]. Heavy clay soils may induce winter rots[2]. Succeeds in poor soils. The flowers open in the evening, they are richly scented and are very attractive to moths.

Propagation

Seed - sow early spring in a sandy medium in a greenhouse. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and plant them out in the summer. Basal cuttings in spring. Harvest the shoots with plenty of underground stem when they are about 8 - 10cm above the ground. Pot them up into individual pots of low-fertility soil and keep them in light shade in a cold frame or greenhouse until they are rooting well. Plant out in the following spring. Cite as: Temperate Plants Database, Ken Fern. temperate.theferns.info. 2026-02-21. <temperate.theferns.info/plant/Oenothera+odorata>

Pollinators

Lepidoptera, bees, Self

References

  1. [1]RHS Dictionary of Plants plus Supplement. 1956 — F. Chittendon. · Oxford University Press · 1951 · ISBN - ↩︎Comprehensive listing of species and how to grow them. Somewhat outdated, it has been replaced in 1992 by a new dictionary (see [ 200 ]).
  2. [2]The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992. — Huxley. A. · MacMillan Press · 1992 · ISBN 0-333-47494-5 ↩︎Excellent and very comprehensive, though it contains a number of silly mistakes. Readable yet also very detailed.
  3. [3]Tanaka's Cyclopedia of Edible Plants of the World. — Tanaka. T. & Nakao S. · Keigaku Publishing; Tokyo · 1976 · ISBN - ↩︎The most comprehensive list of edible plants I've come across. Only the briefest entry for each species, though, and some of the entries are more than a little dubious. Not for the casual reader.
  4. [4]Plants for Human Consumption. — Kunkel. G. · Koeltz Scientific Books · 1984 · ISBN 3874292169 ↩︎An excellent book for the dedicated. A comprehensive listing of Latin names with a brief list of edible parts.