Frémont's wild buckwheat

Plants 3-8(-10) dm. Aerial flowering stems not fistulose, 1-3 dm, glabrous. Leaves basal; blade 1-4 × 0.5-2 cm, tomentose abaxially, floccose or glabrous adaxially, margins plane. Inflorescences cymose, 20-70 × 20-40 cm; branches glabrous. Involucres 2-7 per cluster, 3-5 mm, glabrous or sparsely pubescent. Flowers 2.5-3 mm; perianth white or, infrequently, yellow, pubescent. 2n = 40.

Flowering Jun-Oct. Sandy to gravelly, often volcanic flats and slopes, mixed grassland, manzanita, buckbrush, and sagebrush communities, scrub oak and montane conifer woodlands; 50-2200 m; Calif., Nev., Oreg.

Variety pubiflorum is rather common throughout its extensive range in California, northwestern Nevada, and southern Oregon. It merges with var. nudum in scattered locations in northern California. In the Coast Ranges of central California, there is not always a sharp distinction between var. pubiflorum and var. auriculatum.