ABSTRACT
Evening primrose, a native of North America, is found in all provinces of Canada, but is more frequent in the east than the west. Evening primrose is a frequent weed of roadsides, waste places, and abandoned land, often found in light sandy and gravelly soils. Evening primrose has attracted great interest for its seed oil, used medicinally as a nutritional supplement. Evening primrose leaves, shoots, roots, and seed pods were consumed by American Indians as food. The chief food value of evening primrose is as a source of the health-promoting food supplement gamma-linolenic acid (GLA). Pharmaceutical and food companies are developing GLA-containing supplements and specialty foods for infants, the elderly, and people with health problems. Wild evening primrose plants shed their seeds when a pod matures, and since the pods do not mature simultaneously, harvest of seeds is difficult. Most modern evening primrose cultivars have nonshedding pods, which has simplified harvest and reduced seed loss.
