Gaura podocarpa Wooton & Standley, Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 16: 154. 1913; G. brassicacea Wooton & Standley; G. glandulosa Wooton & Standley; G. gracilis Wooton & Standley; G. hexandra Ortega subsp. gracilis (Wooton & Standley) P. H. Raven &D. P. Gregory; G. strigillosa Wooton & Standley; Oenothera hexandra (Ortega) W. L. Wagner & Hoch subsp. gracilis (Wooton & Standley) W. L. Wagner & Hoch

Herbs annual, villous proximally, glabrate, strigillose and/or glandular puberulent distally, leaves glabrate to densely villous, glabrate in age; from stout taproot. Stems ascending to erect, unbranched or well-branched at base and distally, 15–100 cm. Leaves in a basal rosette and cauline, basal 3–15 × 0.5–1 cm, blade lyrate; cauline 1–9 × 0.1–0.8 cm, blade linear to very narrowly elliptic or narrowly lanceolate, margins sinuate-dentate to subentire. Flowers 4-merous, zygomorphic, opening at sunset; floral tube 6–10 mm; sepals 6–12 mm; petals white, fading pink to red, narrowly obovate, 5.5–9.5 mm, short-clawed; filaments 4–6 mm, anthers 2–3 mm, pollen 90–100% fertile; style 11–19 mm, stigma surrounded by anthers at anthesis. Capsules ellipsoid or narrowly obovoid, narrowly 4-winged, furrowed between wings, 6–8 × 2–3 mm, narrowed at base, stipe 0 mm; sessile. Seeds 4, yellowish to reddish brown, 2–3 × 1–1.5 mm. 2n = 14.

Flowering (May–)Jun–Oct. Disturbed sites, sandy washes, slopes, grasslands, meadows, pinyon-juniper or ponderosa pine woodlands, on volcanic cinders; 700–2800 m; Ariz., N.Mex.; Mexico (Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora).

Oenothera podocarpa occurs in Arizona from eastern Mohave County south through the mountains of central Arizona to eastern Pima County and the southwestern quarter of New Mexico, and in Mexico southward in the Sierra Madre Occidental to eastern Sonora and throughout the western halves of Chihuahua and Durango. P. H. Raven and D. P. Gregory (1972[1973]) determined O. podocarpa to be self-compatible and primarily autogamous.