Havard's wild buckwheat

Eriogonum leucophyllum Wooton & Standley

Herbs, erect, not scapose, (2-)3-6 × 1.5-4 dm, glabrous, grayish. Stems spreading, without persistent leaf bases, up to 5 height of plant; caudex stems absent; aerial flowering stems erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, 0.5-2.5 dm, glabrous, tomentose among leaves. Leaves basal, 1 per node; petiole 0.5-1.5(-2.5) cm, tomentose; blade oblanceolate to elliptic, 1-3(-5) × 0.2-1(-1.3) cm, densely white- or silvery-tomentose on both surfaces, margins plane. Inflorescences cymose, open, divided 3-10 times, 10-40 × 10-30 cm; branches dichotomous, glabrous; bracts 3, scalelike, triangular, 1-2 mm. Peduncles erect, slender, 0.5-6 cm. Involucres 1 per node, campanulate, 1.5-2.5 × (1.5-)2-3 mm, tomentose; teeth 5, erect, 0.5-0.8 mm. Flowers 2.5-3 mm; perianth yellow, densely white-pubescent; tepals connate proximal 3, monomorphic, lanceolate; stamens exserted, 2.5-3.5 mm; filaments glabrous. Achenes brown, 2-2.5 mm, glabrous. 2n = 40.

Flowering May-Sep. Gravelly (often calcareous) or shaley to clayey or gypsum flats and outcrops, mixed grassland, creosote, and mesquite communities, juniper woodlands; (400-)800-1800(-2100) m; N.Mex., Tex.

Eriogonum havardii is infrequent in southeastern New Mexico (Chaves, Eddy, Lea, Lincoln, Otero, and Socorro counties) and western Texas (Brewster, Culberson, El Paso, Hudspeth, Pecos, Presidio, Terrell, Val Verde, and Winkler counties). The leaf blades are demarcated by depressed lines along their entire length, appearing as a series of folds. The bright yellow of the flowers is seen only by looking at the adaxial surface of the tepals, the abaxial surface being wholly obscured by dense white hairs. The species is worthy of cultivation.