''Eriogonum lobbii'' is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name Lobb's buckwheat or prostrate buckwheat. It is native to most of the mountain ranges of

northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

and their extensions into

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

and

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

. It is found in a number of mountain plant communities. The plant is named after

William Lobb William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

(1809–1864), the English plant collector.

Description

This is a low-lying perennial with a woody

caudex A caudex (plural: caudices) of a plant is a stem, but the term is also used to mean a rootstock and particularly a basal stem structure from which new growth arises.pages 456 and 695 In the strict sense of the term, meaning a stem, "caudex" is m ...

spreading to about 40 centimeters in maximum width. It forms a patch of round, paddle-shaped, woolly, gray-green leaves one to twenty centimeters wide in rocky areas. Its

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

is rarely erect, instead drooping or extending parallel to the ground, rarely higher than 15 centimeters. At the end of each prostrate stem is a puffy, woolly, rounded cluster of flowers. Each flower is less than a centimeter wide, petals united in a 5-fold cup, and may be cream to yellowish or pink with red stripes. On level ground the flowerheads surround the cluster of basal leaves; on a hillside they all droop downhill.

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentPhoto gallery
{{Taxonbar, from=Q5389402 lobbii Flora of California Flora of Nevada Flora of Oregon Flora of the Cascade Range Flora of the Great Basin Flora of the Klamath Mountains Flora of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands Natural history of the California Coast Ranges Flora without expected TNC conservation status