Matted buckwheat

Description

Eriogonum caespitosum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name matted buckwheat, mat buckwheat, or cushion desert buckwheat. It is a common perennial plant native to the western United States from California to Montana, especially the Great Basin. Flowering early in the summer, it is also cultivated as a rock garden plant. The species is a tough perennial plant which grows in flat, woody mats in sand and gravel substrates. It has small, fuzzy gray leaves (under 2.5 centimetres (1 in) long) which are scoop-shaped due to their rolled edges. From the mat emerge short stalks with inflorescences of greenish-yellow and whitish rounded clusters of flowers, which redden with age and hang backwards over the edge of the involucre. Some of the flowers are bisexual and up to a centimeter wide each, and some are only staminate and much smaller.