Eriogonum brachypodum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name Parry's buckwheat. This annual herb is native to the southwestern United States from California to Utah and especially the Mojave Desert. It grows in sandy and gravelly substrates. It has a skeletonlike spindly stem which branches many times. It can grow 5 to 50 centimeters in height and up to a meter in width. There is an array of rounded, dark-colored leaves around the base. Leaves are a few centimeters long and fuzzy on the undersides. Most of the plant is actually the spreading inflorescence. At intervals on the otherwise naked branches hang tiny clusters of glandular flowers a few millimeters wide in involucres of bell-shaped bracts. Each flower is less than three millimeters wide.
Taxonomy The botanists John Torrey and Asa Gray scientifically described a new species in the Eriogonum genus in 1870, naming it Eriogonum brachypodum. It was proposed by Philip Alexander Munz that it be classified as a variety of Eriogonum deflexum in 1935 and as a subspecies by Susan Gabriella Stokes in 1936. Together with its genus it is part of the Polygonaceae family. The species has four synonyms.
Table of Synonyms Name Year Rank Notes Eriogonum deflexum subsp. brachypodum 1936 subspecies ≡ hom. Eriogonum deflexum var. brachypodum 1935 variety ≡ hom. Eriogonum deflexum subsp. parryi 1936 subspecies = het. Eriogonum parryi 1874 species = het. Notes: ≡ homotypic synonym; = heterotypic synonym
References
External links Jepson Manual Treatment Photo gallery