Common Evening-primrose

Description:

At the top of a leafy stalk bloom lemon-scented, large yellow flowers. Stem hairy, often purple-tinged. King’s cure-all or common evening primrose is an erect, 2-6 ft. biennial with leafy, branched stems from a basal rosette. The bright-yellow, four-petaled flowers, up to 2 inches across, open at night. These fragrant flowers occur in a many-flowered, terminal spike. The flowers of this night-flowering biennial open in the evening and close by noon. The plant takes 2 years to complete its life cycle, with basal leaves becoming established the first year, and flowering occurring the second. The roots are edible, and the seeds are important as bird feed. Most of the evening-primroses have yellow flowers.— wildflower.org

Notes:

The evening primrose was introduced to Europe in the early 17th century as an ornamental plant in botanical gardens. Its possible applications in the kitchen and as medicinal plant were only discovered more than 100 years later. However, indigenous tribes in North America (namely the Cherokee, Iroquois, Ojibwe and Potawatomi) were using the plant as food and medicinal crop for hundreds of years. Today, the evening primrose is mainly known as garden plant and as medicinal plant in specialized sectors. However, almost all parts of the evening primrose are edible and medically or cosmetically applicable. This includes the roots, leaves, blossoms, flower buds and seeds. — Wikipedia