Texas Wildflowers: Oenothera speciosa, pink evening primrose

Growing up I knew these flowers as buttercups. They would be picked and put into cups to enjoy and I can see my niece Zoe continuing in this fashion as she already collects dandelion flowers from my parents yard. It was only recently when my brother made a comment about them being primroses that I did some research and realized that was what they really were!

This perennial is native to the central plains down into Texas and is a prolific bloomer. In fact I’d say it is the prominent flower on the roadsides now.

I was thrown off that this was an evening primrose because these flowers are blooming all day long. Turns out that the southern populations stay open from sunrise to sunset while the northern ones open in the evenings.

Chris’ photographer friend Paul Marcellini has been doing some light box work creating some beautiful works. Of course it inspired us to flex our creative muscles and give it a whirl. We don’t have all the proper set up yet but we bought two small pieces of foam board and used our flashes as best as possible for some experimenting. This one turned out pretty decent, I think, but we will keep trying! I don’t think it will become our primary form of photography but I think it will be good for these wildflower series and when I do tomato portraits. It’s always fun to learn something new!