Recent advances in niche modeling methods allow us to more accurately predict the ranges of species. These models have been used extensively in building low resolution maps from georeferenced museum specimens as well as predicting future movements of invasive species, however, their full potential as a tool for evolutionary biology has not been adequately explored. With the additional development of high quality world climate layers it is possible to reconstruct not only the ancestral climate envelopes for species, but also the rates of evolution in these climatic variables. I will focus on a clade of 19 plant species endemic to western North America (Oenothera sect. Anogra and Kleinia, Onagraceae). I have used high resolution (1 km2) climate data, a maximum entropy method to model the climatic tolerances of species, and phylogenies inferred from DNA sequence data. I will show a reconstruction of the evolution of climatic tolerances using standard continuous models and focus on the rate at which climatic tolerances evolve, including tests for rate heterogeneity. This approach allows me to investigate how climatic niches evolve over time scales relevant to macroevolutionary biologists. These results provide examples of both climatic niche conservation and evolution.