Identification
This native annual has erect stems 1 1/2 to 6 feet tall. The abundant fine surface hairs give the stem and leaves a soft, velvety character. Narrow, alternate leaves with pointed tips are up to 5 inches long and 1 inch wide (D). The stem terminates in a dense spike of irregular, tubular flowers with 4 pink to rose petals and 4 narrow, sharply swept-back sepals (B). Flowers are tiny, the entire floral tube less than 1/4 inch long. Flowering proceeds from the base to the tip of the nodding spike (A,C).
The dense, nodding cluster (spike) of tiny pink flowers separates Velvety Gaura from Large-Flowered Gaura (Oenothera filiformis), which has a spreading, more open cluster of much larger, flowers. The asymmetrically placed petals, reflexed sepals, 8 protruding stamens and 4-lobed stigma typical of the Gauras are not easy to see in this plant, whose well-deserved alternate common name is Small-flowered Gaura. They are more evident in the photos included in the account of Large-Flowered Gaura in the White Wildflower section.
Grows in drier sites in prairies, open woodlands, fields, and roadsides flowering from June through October. The writer has seen this plant only once in Nebraska Prairie at Neale Woods. It is being listed as uncommon at FF and NW because I suspect it likely has been overlooked as it is widely distributed elsewhere in Nebraska.
Velvety Gaura was formerly classified by botanists as Gaura parviflora. Recently, it was moved along with most of the plants in that genus to an already existing one, Oenothera and given the current scientific name, Oenothera curtiflora.
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