Taxonomy
Evening primrose was originally assigned to the genus Onagra, which gave the family Onagraceae its name. Onagra (meaning "(food of) onager") was first used in botany in 1587, and in English in Philip Miller's 1754 Gardeners Dictionary: Abridged. Its modern name Oenothera was published by Carolus Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae. Its etymology is uncertain but is believed to be derived from the Greek words ονος θηρας (onos theras), meaning "donkey catcher," or οινος θηρας (oinos theras), meaning "wine seeker." In addition, oenothera means "a plant whose juices may cause sleep" in Latin.
In 1905, while studying the genetics of Oenothera lamarckiana, Hugo de Vries discovered a variant with a chromosome number of 2n = 28 compared with 2n = 14 for O. lamarckiana. DeVries was unable to breed this variant with O. lamarckiana. He named the variant Oenothera gigas.
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