Longstem buckwheat, also known as wand buckwheat, is a white-wooly perennial shrub growing 4'- 6' tall and loosely branched at the base.  The leaves are mostly basal, and the blades are lance-oblong to narrowly ovate, ± cuneate at the base, crisped-undulate, and 1" to 2" long.  They are also short-petioled, somewhat glabrous above and white-tomentose beneath.  The involucres are remotely scattered along usually leafless wand-like stems, obscurely five-toothed, sessile, tomentose, and subtend the flowering heads.  Each flower has a 6-lobed calyx in two whorls and no petals.  The calyx is white to pinkish with obovate segments, the innermost slightly longer than the outer.  There are several flowers in each involucre.  Each flower has nine stamens with glabrous filaments.  The fruit is a dark, narrow, glabrous, somewhat three-angled achene.  Longstem buckwheat is quite common in dry rocky places to 6000' in coastal sage scrub and chaparral, ranging from northern Baja to Monterey County, and blooming from August to November.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Eriogonum 2) elongatum.
Pronunciation: er-ee-OG-an-um ee-long-GAY-tum.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.