TWO WILDFLOWERS: DAISY FLEABANE AND EVENING PRIMROSE

DAISY FLEABANE

EVENING PRIMROSE

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Monday, 9:00AM.  67 degrees F at the ferry dock, 65 on the back porch.  Wind ESE, calm with light gusts.  The sky is cloudy but clearing, after thunderstorms most of the night (Buddy is a wuss, and slept in our bedroom).  We got almost an inch of welcome rain.

   The daisy fleabane, Erigeron annuus, in the sunflower Compositae) family is a common annual wildflower of  roadsides,  meadows and prairies.  The ray flowers are white or pink to blue, the center disk  flowers golden yellow.  The genus has as many as two hundred species. The species is native to most of North America.  It reappears every year in the same spot along the roadside.  The common name refers to its traditional use as a flea repellant when dried.

   Evening primrose, Oenothera biennis, in the Evening Primrose Family (Onagraceae), is a biennial plant (growing vegetativey the first year, and flowering the second).  The flowers of many species of the genus open in the evening, thus the common name.  The genus is native to the Western Hemisphere but is now found throughout the world.  The oil of the seeds of evening primrose is antiseptic, and is still used to treat ear infections in children.