Flower question??

[powderburn]

Back in the mid 60's to the early 80's my grandparents ran a motel at West Glacier. There was a flower bed there that had what my Grand mother called Moon Flowers. The flower would blossom at dusk and it would take anywhere from 10-45 seconds for the flower to fully open. Then if you stood very still within minutes several moths about the size of small humming birds would appear and feed off the flowers. Quite a few people tried to get the flowers to grow in thier flower gardens but were not succesful. Even the horticulturist at the Lethbridge Brewery Gardens couldn't grow them. I found a group of about 25 seperate plants growing along the river bottom and when I search google I can't find any pictures looking like this flower. Any idea's on the flower or moth? Flowers are about 4" across and look kind of like a Russian thistle. The moths that show up are 3-4" long and fly like a humming bird, forwards,backwards, up, down and have a wing beat about as fast also.

 

[Oak]

Mentzelia decapetala would be my guess. Looks like they call it Eveningstar. I don't know about the moth.

http://www.em.ca/garden/native/nat_mentzelia_decapetala.html

 

[powderburn]

Thanks Oak, looks like I found the moth also. Leafy Spurge Hawkmoth http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/heuphorb.htm

 

[huntfx4]

very similar to that moth is the White Lined Sphinx Moth also called the hummingbird moth