Oenothera gaura W.L.Wagner & Hoch

Biennial Evening-Primrose, Biennial beeblossom (EN), Zweijährige Prachtkerze (DE), biennial bee-blossom

Climate known 75 photographs

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 gaura, formerly known as Gaura biennis, the biennial gaura or biennial beeblossom, is a North American flowering plant that can reach 6 ft (1.8 m) in height at maturity. Its upper half is made up of flowering stems, which are covered with soft, white hairs. It has light pink colored flowers, which turn a vibrant red/pink color in the late summer to early fall seasons. These colors make this plant attractive to butterflies and bees, and are in full bloom just before many fall plant species begin to bloom.

Text from Wikipedia, “Oenothera gaura”, 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

W.L.Wagner & Hoch

Native to

Ontario, Québec, Illinois +20

Wild records

1622 in range· 367 open

At a glance

Warmest month

28°C

Jul, mean day; nights 19 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1054mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Jun 110 mm (CHELSA)

Light

11–40DLI

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 November in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1054 mm a year, wettest June at 110 mm, driest February at 62 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -13.9 °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 Gaura biennis L.; Gaura biennis var. biennis; Gaura biennis var. typica Munz; Gaura pitcheri (Torr. & A.Gray) Small; Gaura pitcheri Pickering and 1 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to September and November 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 (770 mm of 1054 mm) takes 8 months, March to September and November. Mean temperature moves 25.9 °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 May.

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 1054 mm a year, wettest June at 110 mm, driest February at 62 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1054 mm a year at the habitat, 770 mm of it March to September and November. Wettest month June at 110 mm, driest February at 62 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 910 mm to 1245 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: 11 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 11 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 9, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).

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 -13.9 °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 -13.9 °C, the absolute minimum -22.9 °C, about 113 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 30.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -6.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells -10.6 °C to -3.0 °C), warmest day 28.0 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -13.9 °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 61% 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1003 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	2 / -2–5	4 / 0–8	10 / 6–13	16 / 13–19	21 / 19–23	26 / 24–28	28 / 27–30	27 / 26–29	23 / 22–26	17 / 15–19	10 / 7–13	4 / -0–7
Night °C	-6 / -11–-3	-5 / -8–-2	-1 / -3–2	5 / 3–8	11 / 10–13	16 / 15–18	19 / 17–21	18 / 17–20	14 / 13–16	8 / 7–10	3 / 0–5	-3 / -8–-1
Rain mm	68 / 32–88	62 / 37–82	79 / 52–106	94 / 83–108	108 / 95–131	110 / 95–125	108 / 95–127	98 / 83–119	91 / 78–111	78 / 68–102	82 / 62–101	76 / 44–103
DLI	13 / 12–15	19 / 18–20	26 / 25–27	33 / 32–34	37 / 36–38	40 / 39–42	40 / 38–41	34 / 33–36	28 / 27–29	20 / 19–22	13 / 12–15	11 / 9–13
RH %	60 / 57–63	59 / 56–61	57 / 55–58	56 / 55–57	57 / 55–59	58 / 56–60	58 / 57–61	59 / 58–61	58 / 57–61	58 / 56–59	59 / 57–60	61 / 57–63

Each figure is the median across the 1003 grid cells holding the 1536 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 936:2018 (43.175, -79.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -22.9 °C, 1st-percentile night -13.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 30.4 °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 1003 distinct grid cells holding the 1536 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 936:2018 (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 43.00_-79.375, lapse-corrected -50 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 113 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.

NativeOntario, Québec, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, West Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, District of Columbia· introduced: Romania

Kew's description“annual or biennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker43.084, -89.508 · in the densest population, 501 records (31% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1622 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 367 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 861 km away. 85 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 86 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 of the 1622 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Douglas Goldman, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (8).

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 gaura, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

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