Eriogonum latifolium |
Eriogonum angulosum |
|
---|---|---|
coast buckwheat, coast wild buckwheat, seaside buckwheat, seaside wild buckwheat |
angle stem buckwheat, angle-stem wild buckwheat |
|
Habit | Subshrubs or herbs, often scapose, much-branched and matted, 2–7 × 5–20 dm, usually tomentose to floccose, rarely glabrous. | Herbs, erect to spreading, annual, 1–5(–10) dm, tomen-tose to floccose or glabrous, usually grayish. |
Stems | spreading to erect, with persistent leaf bases, up to 1/4 height of plant; caudex stems matted; aerial flowering stems often scapelike, erect to spreading or decumbent, usually stout, solid, not fistulose, 2–6 dm, usually tomentose to floccose, rarely glabrous. |
caudex absent; aerial flowering stems erect, striated, angled, solid, not fistulose, 0.5–1 dm, tomentose to floccose. |
Leaves | cauline; petiole 2–6(–10) cm, tomentose; blade oblong to ovate, (1.5–)2.5–5 × 1.5–4 cm, white-lanate to tawny-tomentose on both surfaces, or tomentose to floccose or glabrous and green adaxially, margins plane, occasionally crisped. |
basal and cauline; basal: petiole 0.5–3 cm, mostly floccose, blade oblanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 1–4(–4.5) × (0.2–)0.5–1(–1.3) cm, tomentose abaxially, floccose or glabrate and grayish or greenish adaxially, margins crenulate; cauline sessile, blade lanceolate to oblong, 0.5–2 × 0.3–0.8 cm, similar to basal blade. |
Inflorescences | capitate to umbellate or cymose, 3–40 × 2–20 cm; branches usually tomentose to floccose, rarely glabrous; bracts usually 3, leaflike, oblong to ovate, and 5–20 × 5–15 mm proximally, scalelike, triangular, and 2–5 mm distally. |
cymose, open, 5–80 × 10–60 cm; branches striated, angled, sparsely tomentose to glabrate; bracts 3, scalelike, 1–3 × 1–3 mm. |
Peduncles | absent. |
erect, straight, slender, 1–2 cm, sparsely tomentose to glabrous. |
Involucres | (3–)5–20 per cluster, turbinate, 3.5–5(–6) × 2–4 mm, tomentose or glabrous; teeth 5–6, erect, 0.3–0.6 mm. |
turbinate-campanulate to campanulate, 1.5–2.5(–3) × 1.5–2.5(–3), sparsely puberulent; teeth 5, erect, 0.3–0.6 mm. |
Flowers | 3–3.5 mm; perianth white to pink or rose, glabrous; tepals connate proximal 1/4, monomorphic, obovate; stamens exserted, 3–6 mm; filaments pilose proximally. |
1.5–1.8 mm; perianth white to rose, without a conspicuous rose-purple spot on each outer tepal, minutely glandular-puberulent; tepals dimorphic, those of outer whorl elliptic to obovate, sometimes inflated proximally, those of inner whorl narrowly spatulate; stamens exserted, 2–3 mm; filaments pilose proximally. |
Achenes | brown, 3.5–4 mm, glabrous. |
light brown to brown, 3-gonous, 1–1.5 mm, glabrous. |
2n | = 40. |
|
Eriogonum latifolium |
Eriogonum angulosum |
|
Phenology | Flowering year-round. | Flowering year-round. |
Habitat | Sandy coastal flats, slopes, bluffs, and mesas, coastal scrub and grassland communities | Clayey flats and slopes, mixed grassland, saltbush, and chaparral communities, oak and conifer woodlands |
Elevation | 0-80(-200) m (0-300(-700) ft) | 0-800 m (0-2600 ft) |
Distribution |
CA; OR
|
CA
|
Discussion | Eriogonum latifolium is found along the immediate coast of southwest Oregon (Curry County) and western California (Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma counties). The species is rather variable as to size and aspect, these depending to a considerable degree on exposure to on-shore winds. The flowering stems are rarely glabrous, but plants with this expression are always intermixed with plants having tomentose to floccose stems. The brilliantly white-lanate, spreading shrubs become rather globose in shape under cultivation, and as a result make an attractive addition to the garden, especially as the flowers wither through various shades of pink to rose. The species should be used much more than at present in places where cool summer temperatures, good moisture, and sandy soils are available. A decoction consisting of the roots, leaves, and stems of Eriogonum latifolium was taken by various Native American people along the California coast for colds and coughs (B. R. Bocek 1984; D. E. Moerman 1986). V. K. Chestnut (1902) reported that the native people of Mendocino County, California, used a decoction of the roots for stomach pain, “female complaints,” and sore eyes. The species is the food plant for the bramble hairstreak butterfly (Callophrys viridis), Mormon metalmark (Apodemia mormo), western square-dotted blue (Euphilotes comstocki comstocki), and the federally endangered Smith’s dotted-blue (Euphilotes enoptes smithi). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
The name Eriogonum angulosum has been applied to all of the members of its species complex except E. gossypinum. Since the 1950s, the name consistently has been applied to plants with long, exserted stamens and strongly angled stems of the Inner Coast Ranges (Alameda and Contra Costa counties south), the western foothills of the southern Sierra Nevada (Tulare County south), and the Central Valley (San Joaquin County south). The southern edge of the range is the northern foothills of the Transverse Ranges (Ventura and Los Angeles counties). The species can be common and occasionally abundant but rarely is weedy. A mixed collection (with E. gracillimum) from Barstow, San Bernardino County (K. Brandegee s.n., May 1913, UC), and two sheets of the species from San Diego gathered by Susan Stokes apparently in 1895 (B, SD) are discounted as to location. In late fruit, the bractlets at the base of the pedicel inside the involucres of Eriogonum angulosum often elongate and broaden into oblanceolate segments that fill the involucre. As a result, the involucre appears to have several rows of teeth. This feature may be seen also in E. viridescens, but typically the involucres there appear to have only two or three rows of teeth. This feature is seen rarely in E. maculatum. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 5, p. 314. | FNA vol. 5, p. 411. |
Parent taxa | Polygonaceae > subfam. Eriogonoideae > Eriogonum > subg. Eucycla | Polygonaceae > subfam. Eriogonoideae > Eriogonum > subg. Ganysma |
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | Smith: in A. Rees, Cycl. 13(2): Eriogonum no. 3. (1809) | Bentham: Trans. Linn. Soc. London 17: 406, plate 18, fig. 1. (1836) |
Web links |