Scale-bract wild buckwheat

Eriogonum panamintense C. V. Morton var. mensicola (S. Stokes) Reveal

Herbs, erect, (1-)1.5-3 × 1-2 dm, tomentose, grayish. Stems slightly spreading to erect, without persistent leaf bases, up to 1/ 5 height of plant; caudex stems absent; aerial flowering stems erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, 0.5-1(-1.3) dm, tomentose.  Leaves basal, 1 per node; petiole 1-2 cm, tomentose; blade round, (0.3-)0.5-1.5 × (0.3-)1-1.5 cm, tomentose abaxially, thinly floccose and green adaxially, or white-tomentose on both surfaces, margins plane. Inflorescences cymose with involucres racemosely disposed at tips, 10-15(-20) × 0.6-3(-5) cm; branches dichotomous, tomentose; bracts 3, scalelike, linear to narrowly triangular, and 1-3 mm, or leaflike, ovate to orbiculate, and 5-12 × 5-12 mm. Peduncles absent. Involucres 1 per node, campanulate, 2-3(-4) × 2-4 mm, tomentose; teeth 5, erect, 0.4-0.8 mm. Flowers 3-4 mm, perianth white to whitish brown, glabrous; tepals connate proximal 4, monomorphic, oblanceolate; stamens exserted, 3-6 mm; filaments pilose proximally. Achenes light brown, 2.5-3 mm, glabrous.

Flowering Jul-Oct. Rocky to gravelly flats and slopes, sagebrush and mountain mahogany communities, pinyon-juniper and montane conifer woodlands; 1800-2700 m; Calif., Nev.

Eriogonum mensicola is infrequent in the Inyo Mountains and the Panamint and Coso ranges of Inyo County, California, with a disjunct population on the Sheep Range in Clark County, Nevada.