Bateman's Buckwheat

Eriogonum batemanii is fairly common throughout its range in northwestern Colorado (Moffat and Rio Blanco counties) and east-central Utah (Carbon, Duchesne, Emery, Garfield, Grand, and Uintah counties). In Duchesne County it hybridizes with E. shockleyi, producing an unnamed but distinctive hybrid.

Herbs, spreading, not scapose, (1-)1.5-3.5(-5) × 1-2.5 dm, glabrous, grayish. Stems spread-ing, usually without persistent leaf bases, up to 1/ 4 height of plant; caudex stems absent; aerial flowering stems erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, 1-2 dm, glabrous. Leaves basal, 1 per node; petiole 0.8-2.5(-4) cm, tomentose; blade elliptic, (1-)1.5-3(-5) × 0.6-1(-1.2) cm, densely white-tomentose abaxially, less so and white adaxially, margins plane. Inflorescences cymose, 4-15 × 5-15 cm; branches dichotomous, glabrous; bracts 3, scalelike, triangular, 1-2 mm. Peduncles absent. Involucres (1-)2-5 per cluster, turbinate, 2-4 × 1.5-2.5(-3.5) mm, glabrous; teeth 5, erect, 0.5-0.8 mm. Flowers 1.5-3 mm; perianth white, glabrous; tepals connate proximally, monomorphic, obovate; stamens exserted, 1.5-3.5 mm; filaments sparsely pilose proximally. Achenes light brown to brown, 2.5-3 mm, glabrous. 2n = 40.

Colo., Utah.

Flowering Jun-Sep.

Shaley, silty, gravelly, or clayey flats, washes, and slopes, saltbush and sagebrush communities, juniper woodlands; 1400-2600m.