Plant ID - Evening Primrose and an Epilobium

#1. I have been puzzling over this plant all summer. I keep finding it flowering in completely different areas of my garden so I don't think it's something I planted. The base is a wide rosette of leaves from which the stalk rises up with leaves spiraling around it and multiple yellow flowers at the top.

#2. I let this one grow all summer in one of my kids' beds thinking it was something they planted and that I would eventually recognize it once it flowered. But no, it's definitely a wild plant. That big mass is one single plant. The flowers are miniscule and the seed pods are slender pods that pop and peel back releasing fluffy seeds, kind of like foxglove seed pods only 10xs smaller. (I know it's not foxglove, just the seeds remind me of them.)

No. 1 is an evening primrose (oenothera biennis), there are many varieties with different blossom shapes and sizes, with and without perfume etc.

No. 2 could be of the epilobium family but I am not sure. Probably a native American species?

I agree with Anne about the evening primrose - lucky you! Lisa Sture really rates the flowers as edible here and the first year roots are also supposed to be a good edible. They prefer a slightly warmer, dried climate to mine, so I've never bothered trying to introduce them here.

I think she's probably right about #2 too I have some tiny ones, but your's looks huge. Try a local wild flower guide. I suspect you could be wishing you hadn't let this one go to seed!

Evening Primrose looks correct for #1. Lovely! Thank you!

Yeah#2 was sneaky, going to seed on me so quickly. I was waiting for flowers to help me ID it but the flowers were so miniscule, I didn't catch it until half of them were already seeds.

Jenny Wright wrote:
Yeah#2 was sneaky, going to seed on me so quickly. I was waiting for flowers to help me ID it but the flowers were so miniscule, I didn't catch it until half of them were already seeds.

I am quite sure it is epilobium, but the epilobium ciliatum (fringed willowherb) has broader leaves - which are dependent on soil type and moisture, however, and there are subspecies.

Here in Germany we have a second invasive epilobium from North America but it is hard to find out the name. After some more googling I am quite certain it is Epilobium brachycarpum. It can be seen along train tracks but there is very little knowledge on this species (as far as I could see it is spreading here for the last 15 years).