Barron's wild buckwheat

Shrubs, spreading, not scapose, 1-1.5 × 1.7-2.5 dm, densely tomentose, grayish. Stems spreading, without persistent leaf bases, up to 1/ 3 height of plant; caudex stems absent; aerial flowering stems erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, (0.15-)0.6.-1.3(-1.7) dm, tomentose. Leaves fasciculate at tips of branches; petiole (0.2-)0.6-0.9(-1.3) cm, tomentose; blade narrowly elliptic, (0.7-)1.2-1.7(-2.2) × (0.2-)0.4-0.7(-0.9) cm, tomentose on both surfaces, margins plane to revolute. Inflorescences umbellate, 2-10 × 2-9 cm; branches umbellate, tomentose; bracts 2-4(-6), semileaflike, narrowly oblong to narrowly elliptic, 2-5 × 1-2 mm. Peduncles erect, slender, (1.5-)2-8.5(-9.5) cm, tomentose to glabrate. Involucres 1 per node, broadly campanulate, 2-3 × (2-)3-4(-5) mm, tomentose and densely glandular abaxially; teeth 5-7, erect, 1-1.2 mm. Flowers 4-6 mm; perianth white, densely villous and glandular abaxially; tepals connate proximal 1/ 4, monomorphic, obovate; stamens included to exserted, 2.5-6.5 mm; filaments sparsely pilose proximally. Achenes light brown, 3-4 mm, villous.

Flowering Jul-Sep. Gravelly soil, manzanita scrub and conifer woodlands; 2000 m; Calif.

Eriogonum spectabile is known only from a population of approximately 250 individuals north of Chester in the Lassen National Forest of Plumas County. The U.S. Forest Service considers it to be a “sensitive species,” and it is a candidate for possible state and federal protection.