buckwheat ~ 07/14/11 ~ Garland Ranch

buckwheat
Eriogonum sp.
Polygonaceae 

I've resigned myself to the fact that some buckwheats are simply too difficult for me to ID to sp., let alone ssp. I'm guessing there are two different Eriogonum spp. in this post. Instead of pulling my hair out and spending way too much time on a single blog entry, I'm perfectly okay to post these buckwheats without a positive ID. I'll need to remember to try to take pictures of the leaves, which can often be a challenging task when they're growing in a tangle among other plants. The sunny yellow flowers shown above are common madia.

buckwheat
Eriogonum sp.
Polygonaceae

The yellow blooms above are, I believe, deerweed. I'm starting to suspect that other plants found growing right next to an unknown can help ID the unknown. I often use the Monterey Bay Chapter of the CNPS local plant lists to help me narrow down from hundreds of species (at least 268 Eriogonum sp./ssp. in CA alone) to just a handful. Although, I know based on my own findings and flowers listed in Wildflowers of Garland Ranch - a field guide by Michael Mitchell and Rod M. Yeager that the CNPS list is not nearly complete. For my future reference, here's a combined list of what has been documented at Garland Ranch from CNPS and the book (* denotes my guesses for the above):

(CalPhotos) --- (Calflora) --- (Jepson Interchange - older version)
elegant buckwheat --- E. elegans --- uncommon, sand or gravel
* long-stemmed buckwheat --- E. elongatum var. elongatum --- common, dry places
* coastal California buckwheat --- E. fasciculatum var. fasciculatum --- coastal scrub, often on bluffs
St. Catherine's lace --- E. giganteum --- uncommon, dry slopes, ridges
slender woolly buckwheat --- E. gracile var. gracile --- sand
* naked buckwheat --- E. nudum var. auriculatum (book) --- common, rocks or gravel
hairy flowered buckwheat --- E. nudum var. pubiflorum (CNPS) --- common, dry flats, slopes
seacliff (dune) buckwheat --- E. parvifolium --- dunes, seabluffs

ps 09/13/14 - Both the CNPS list and the Wildflowers of Garland Ranch were updated shortly after I originally wrote this post.  I've made minor var. corrections above for coastal CA buckwheat and slender woolly buckwheat.  I'm not making any guesses as to spp. from these photos, because I've since learned to take better pictures of the leaves, which for me is extraordinarily helpful.

For my own record keeping purposes, Podere di Farfalla is in the general area as Garland Ranch, and its plant list is as follows:
elegant buckwheat --- E. elegans
long-stemmed buckwheat --- E. elongatum var. elongatum
Mojave Desert California buckwheat --- E. fasciculatum var. polifolium --- dry slopes, washes
Pinnacles buckwheat --- E. nortonii --- sand
naked buckwheat --- E. nudum var. auriculatum
seacliff buckwheat --- E. parvifolium

pss 11/19/14 - I now believe the first set of photos above are seacliff buckwheat (E. parvifolium), and the second set of photos are likely (not absolutely positive) ear-shaped wild buckwheat (E. nudum var. aruriculatum).  Newer seacliff buckwheat and naked buckwheat posts have more detail.