Yesterday, I visited an allotment during my evening stroll. I stumbled upon a plant that had flowered last season. When I first saw it, I thought it was a sesame plant — unusual, but not impossible to grow here in Denmark.
The plant had hundreds of upright pods, much like sesame, all emerging from a single main stem.
Upon closer inspection, the plants looked like a strange lovechild between sesame and perilla.
The seeds, on the other hand, looked like a tiny version of shungiku seeds (garland chrysanthemum).
I couldn’t resist — I had to snatch a seedpod to get to the bottom of this mystery. Maybe some of you recognize it. Could be something obvious… or not.
4 Likes
Plant them and see what comes up. I have no idea, but it is intriguing.
1 Like
The pod looks like Sesame, but not the seeds 
1 Like
Evening primrose?
3 Likes
You might be on to something!
That’s what I suspect too. FloraVeg.EU.
This is an Evening Primrose, Most likely the common species (Oenothera biennis).
It’s an Edible Plant, Here’s the page for it in Samuel Thayer’s Wild Edibles Book.
That being said, there is a chance it could be a different closely related species of Oenothera, most species still have many edible uses. I haven’t learned much about them to distinguish species but I hope this helps & gives you enough confidance to eat it, grow it & eventually domesticate it into the epic crop it can be!
6 Likes
You’re so good at identifying seeds, @VeggieSavage! 
It’s amazingly cool.
1 Like
Yes, I agree!
1 Like
Thank you! I practiced! It’s a super important skill to have, super useful for when you forgot to label seeds but know them without label.
Feel free to share more unknown seed photos, it’s all practice for me!
2 Likes
I would like to warn you about the growing Oenothera in Europe. This plant seems to please the pollinating butterflies, but as our European butterflies have not co-evolved with this plant certain have the trunk that remains stuck in this flower which causes their death by exhaustion 
Wow, I didn’t know that could happen! Poor butterflies.
Thank you so much for that note! I absolutely won’t plant the seeds then…
it’s always the same dilemma 
:
Should this plant be grown so that its evolution can take place with local pollinators (by sacrificing a few generations of insects)?
Should it be banned and put the world in plant protectionism?
Should it be helped to evolve faster by crossing with other species with a flower selection criterion that doesn’t capture the butterfly tubes ?
1 Like
good questions, I’d say let it adapt & enjoy it’s flavor/food uses if they are good.
Speed running evolution is what happens with landrace gardening, nature is very much “adapt or die” attitude but has pockets that defy this attidude.
If the butterfly becomes a best (Like the Cabbage Caterpillar kind), it’s a win, if you enjoy the butterflies, it’s a loss for you, there’s a lot of trade offs here. You as the Gardener get to deside how you want to position your garden.
I’m interested in trying eating Evening Primrose, I love the smell of the flowers & if I can improve apon what I like thru breeding/selection, I will! Hopefully I can callaborate with others to speed run Evening Primrose Domestication & make it the epic landrace it could be!