Volcanic Buckwheat

Eriogonum lemmonii is rare and localized, only infrequently being locally occasional. It is restricted to the southwestern edge of the pluvial Lahontan Lake basin of northwestern Nevada. It is found mainly in the Silver Springs and Wadsworth areas of Washoe, Churchill, and Storey counties, with outlying populations at the southern end of the Sahwave Mountains (Pershing County) and in Wilson Canyon (Lyon County). It is on the Nevada “watch list” of narrowly distributed endemic species.

Herbs, erect, annual, (0.1-)1.5-8(-10) dm, glabrous, green. Stems: caudex absent; aerial flowering stems erect, occasion-ally hollow and fistulose, 0.1-3 dm, glabrous. Leaves basal; petiole 2-5 cm, pilose; blade round, 1-3 × 1-3 cm, pilose and bright green on both surfaces, margins plane. Inflorescences narrowly cymose, open, 10-80 × 5-50 cm; branches infrequently fistulose, glabrous; bracts 3, scalelike, 0.5-2 × 0.3-0.8 mm. Peduncles absent or only at proximal node, erect, straight, slender, 0.1-0.5 cm, glabrous. Involucres campanulate, 2-3 × (1.5-)2-3 mm, sparsely villous; teeth 6-8, erect, 0.5-0.8 mm. Flowers 1.5-2 mm; perianth white or greenish with pink to red midribs, becoming pinkish, glabrous, papillate in fruit; tepals monomorphic, lanceolate; stamens included to exserted, 1-2 mm; filaments glabrous. Achenes dark brown to black, 3-gonous, 1.3-1.5 mm, glabrous.

Nev.

Flowering May-Jun.

Clayey or tuffaceous outcrops, flats, and slopes, saltbush and greasewood communities; 1300-1700m.