Oenothera argillicola var. pubescens Core & H. A. Davis

Herbs biennial or short-lived perennial, strigillose and sparsely to moderately villous, hairs sometimes pustulate, pustules with green or red bases, inflorescence glabrous or sparsely glandular puberulent, sometimes also sparsely villous. Stems erect to ascending, green or red, unbranched or with branches obliquely arising from rosette or in distal 1/2 of main stem. Leaves in a basal rosette and cauline, basal 7–25 × 0.7–2 cm, cauline 6–13 × 0.4–1 cm; blade dark green, somewhat glossy, very narrowly oblanceolate to narrowly oblanceolate, linear-elliptic, lanceolate, or nearly linear, margins flat, entire or remotely and bluntly dentate, sometimes with larger teeth near base; bracts persistent. Inflorescences curved with ascending tip, unbranched. Flowers opening near sunset; buds erect, 4–8 mm diam., with free tips subterminal, divergent and hornlike, 3–9 mm; floral tube 32–52 mm; sepals yellowish green to yellow, sometimes flushed with red, especially at apex, 27–38 mm; petals yellow to pale yellow, fading pale yellow to pale yellowish orange, very broadly obcordate or obovate, 25–42 mm; filaments 20–27 mm, anthers 9–13 mm, pollen 90–100% fertile; style 60–85 mm, stigma exserted beyond anthers at anthesis. Capsules spreading at nearly a right angle to stem, curved upward, sometimes secund, dull green or rusty brown when dry, narrowly lanceoloid to lanceoloid, 20–40 × 4–6 mm, free tips of valves 1–2 mm. Seeds 1.3–1.9 × 0.7–1.1 mm. 2n = 14.

Flowering (Jun–)Jul–Oct. Open sites on Devonian Brallier shale slopes, barrens, outcrops or adjacent roadsides in mid-Appalachian Allegheny Mountains; 150–700 m; Md., Pa., Va., W.Va.

Oenothera argillicola is one of eight angiosperm species restricted to the Devonian Brallier shale barrens, but among them only O. argillicola and Trifolium virginicum occur throughout the shale barren region. Oenothera argillicola has plastome V and a CC genome composition.