Cottony Buckwheat

Eriogonum gossypinum is rare to infrequent on the foothills of the Inner Coast Ranges in Kings (Kettleman Hills) and eastern San Luis Obispo counties, with two centers of concentration in Kern County, one in the Taft area and another east of Bakersfield. The Kern County populations are the most extensive and subject to the greatest habitat destruction. The species is protected at The Nature Conservancy's Sand Ridge Preserve near Edison.

Herbs, spreading, annual, 0.5-2 dm, tomentose, grayish to reddish. Stems: caudex absent; aerial flowering stems erect, not striated or angled, solid, not fistulose, 0.2-0.5 dm, tomentose. Leaves basal and cauline; basal: petiole 0.5-1 cm, floccose, blade broadly oblanceolate, 1.5-4 × 0.5-1 cm, tomentose abaxially, floccose or glabrate and grayish to green adaxially, margins crenulate, often slightly revolute; cauline sessile, blade lanceolate, 0.3-2 × 0.2-0.7 cm, similar to basal blade. Inflorescences cymose, diffuse, 3-17 × 5-25 cm; branches tomentose; bracts 3, scalelike, 1-2 × 0.5-1.5 mm. Peduncles spreading, straight, capillary, 0.2-1.5 cm, thinly tomentose to floccose or glabrous. Involucres turbinate, 2.7-3 × 2-2.5 mm, glandular-puberulent, densely tomentose adaxially; teeth 5, spreading, 0.8-1.2(-1.5). Flowers 1.5-1.7 mm; perianth white, glandular-puberulent; tepals monomorphic, narrowly oblong; stamens included, 1-1.5 mm; filaments pilose proximally. Achenes light brown, 3-gonous, 1.3-1.5 mm, glabrous. 2n = 40.

Calif.

Flowering year-round.

Clayey gypsophilous flats and slopes, grassland and saltbush communities; 100-500m.

Eriogonum gossypinum is an uncommon species of wild buckwheat known by the common name cottony buckwheat. It is endemic to California, where it is known from the southern Central Valley and some of the adjacent foothills. It is often found on clay soils. It is an annual herb producing a gray or reddish branched stem no more than about 20 centimeters tall. The leaves are oblong in shape and woolly in texture. The scattered inflorescences are small clusters of white to pink glandular flowers buried in a layer of cottony fibers.