Eriogonum lobbii
Encyclopedia
Eriogonum lobbii is a species of wild buckwheat
Eriogonum
Eriogonum is the scientific name for a genus of flowering plants, in the family Polygonaceae. The genus is found in North America and is known as wild buckwheat. This is a highly species-rich genus, and indications are that active speciation is continuing...

 known by the common name Lobb's buckwheat. It is native to most of the mountain ranges of northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...

 and their extensions into Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

 and Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

. It is found in a number of mountain plant communities.

The plant is named after William Lobb
William Lobb
William Lobb was a Cornish plant collector, employed by Veitch Nurseries of Exeter, who was responsible for the commercial introduction to England of Araucaria araucana from Chile and the massive Sequoiadendron giganteum from North America.He and his brother, Thomas Lobb, were the first...

 (1809 – 1864), the English plant collector.

Description

This is a low-lying perennial with a woody caudex
Caudex
A caudex is a form of stem morphology appearing as a thickened, short, perennial stem that is either underground or near ground level . It may be swollen for the purpose of water storage, especially in xerophytes...

 spreading to about 40 centimeters in maximum width. It forms a patch of round, paddle-shaped, woolly leaves one to five centimeters wide in rocky areas. Its inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

is rarely erect, instead drooping or extending parallel to the ground, rarely higher than 15 centimeters.

At the end of each branch is a puffy, woolly, rounded cluster of flowers. Each flower is less than a centimeter wide and may be cream to yellowish or pink with red stripes.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK