Beautiful sulphur flower

Eriogonum speciosum Drew, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 16: 152. 1889

Shrubs, spreading to rounded, 5-15(-20) × 5-20 dm. Aerial flowering stems erect, 1.5-3 dm, mostly tomentose, without one or more leaflike bracts ca. midlength. Leaves in loose rosettes; blade elliptic to ovate, 1-3 × 0.5-2.5 cm, densely gray-lanate to tomentose abaxially, floccose or glabrous and green adaxially, margins plane. Inflorescences compound-umbellate, branched 2-4 times; branches tomentose, without a whorl of bracts ca. midlength; involucral tubes 4-6 mm, lobes 3-5 mm. Flowers 7-10(-12) mm; perianth bright yellow.

Flowering Jun-Sep. Serpentine flats and slopes, oak and conifer woodlands; 100-800 m; Calif.

Variety speciosum is known only from a few scattered locations in Humboldt and Trinity counties. These large and showy shrubs are worthy of cultivation. In early-flowering material, the flowers can be shorter than noted above.

The name var. speciosum has been widely misapplied to var. dumosum, var. polyanthum, and especially var. ahartii.