Plant Species: Eriogonum heracleoides, Wyeth buckwheat
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicotyledons
Order: Polygonales
Family: Polygonaceae -- buckwheat
Genus: Eriogonum
Species: heracleoides
Variety:
Common Name: Wyeth buckwheat, parsnipflower buckwheat
Species Code: ERHE2
Origin: Native to dry, open, often rocky places from British Columbia to California and east to Montana and Colorado.
Rare: no
Form: forb or subshrub, perennial from a woody base, 10-40 cm tall, tomentose throughout.
Duration: perennial
Longevity: long
Habitat Type: lithosolic prairie
Wetland Indicator Status: not listed
Leaves: petiolate; blades 1-6 cm long, linear to linear-oblanceolate or sometimes broadly oblanceolate, acute to sometimes
obtuse, narrowed to the petiole, tomentose on both surfaces but the upper less so.
Mature height: 4-16 inches
Flowers: borne in a compound umbel, congested, subtended by a whorl of leafy bracts; involucres wooly, campanulate, 5-12 lobed, lobes linear or lanceolate, 2-3 mm long; perianth white to cream or yellowish, sometimes red-tinged, usually glabrous.
Flower color: white, pink
Bloom: May, June, July
Bloom starts on: late May
Bloom ends on: early July
Fruit: achene, 3.5 mm long, pubescent above the middle, tip three-angled.
Vegetation type:
Characteristics:
Reproduces sexually by seed.
145,721 seeds/lb (USDA NRCS Pullman PMC 2005).
Perennating structure is the suffrutescent base.
The genus is generally insect pollinated, flowers are attractive to bees.
Flowers are perfect.
Native peoples had medicinal uses (Parish et al 1996).
Fruit is an achene.
Seeds are gathered by rodents (Craighead et al 1963). Plants are of minor value for Rocky Mountain elk in fall (Kufeld 1973). The genus as a whole is not used much by
livestock but can be important winter and spring forage for big game (Roche & Roche 1993).
Eriogonum species are the host for larva of the square-spotted blue (Euphilotes battoides), Sheridan’s green hairstreak (Callophrys sheridanii), and the acmon blue (Icaricia acmon) butterflies (Pocewicz 2005).
Comments:
Sun requirement: full
Soil moisture: xeric
Precipitation: 12-25 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).
Fire:
Hazards:
Sowing time: fall
Transplant time: spring
Stratification: cold moist
Seed yield: medium
Seed harvest: easy
Seed first harvest: second season
Seed cleaning: easy
Planting duration: long
Seed insect problem: yes
Seed shatter: medium
Seed size: medium
Seed harvest date: late July/early August
Seed comments: seed ripens over a period of 10 days to two weeks. Harvest timing is critical to maximum seed yield.
Key words: upland perennial forb lithosol lithosolic
Alternate Genus:
Alternate Species:
Alternate Variety:
Propagation:
3 protocols in the Native Plant Network
Utah, Shrub Sciences Lab
Corvallis OR Plant Materials Center
Pullman WA Plant Materials Center
Other propagation information:
Seed in fall. Fresh seed has a 30 to 40 days after-ripening requirement (Stevens et al 1996).
Seed will germinate at low rates without pretreatment, but 12 weeks of cold moist stratification is required for best germination rates. Germinates at low temperatures (Meyer & Paulsen 2000).
Seed stores up to 5 years under ambient temperatures and humidity (Stevens et al 1981).
Reproduces sexually by seed.
Notes: Eriogonum heracleoides should be a great plant for a rock garden or a very dry area. The seed doesn’t germinate at
very high rates, but it can be grown from seed. Germination is higher after stratification. It will flower the year following transplanting. Blooms in late June.
The dried bracts hold their color well and give the plant interest long after the actual flowering has been completed. Common names include creamy buckwheat, Wyeth buckwheat,
parsnip-flowered buckwheat (Skinner et al 2005).
References:
Craighead, John J., Frank C. Craighead, and Ray J. Davis. 1963. A Field Guide to Rocky Mountain Wildflowers. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, MA.
Kufeld, Roland. 1973. Foods Eaten by the Rocky Mountain Elk. Journal of Range Management 26:106-113.
Meyer, Susan E., and Alisa Paulsen. 2000. Chilling Requirements for Seed Germination of 10 Utah Species of Perennial Wild Buckwheat (Eriogonum Michx. [Polygonaceae]). Native Plants Journal 1(1):18-24.
Parish, Roberta, Ray Coupe, and Dennis Lloyd. 1996. Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia. Lone Pine Publishing. Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Pocewicz, Amy. 2005. Host Plants of Palouse Butterfly Species. 2 page handout to accompany the April 2005 presentation to the Palouse Prairie Foundation.
Roche, Ben F., Jr., and Cindy Talbott Roche. 1991. Eastern Washington Range Plants. Extension Bulletin 1302, Washington State University Coop. Extension Service, Pullman WA. 66 pp.
Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation.
Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf
Stevens, Richard, Kent R. Jorgensen, and James N. Davis. 1981. Viability of Seed From Thirty-two Shrub and Forb Species Through Fifteen Years of Warehouse Storage. Great Basin Naturalist 41:274-277.
Stevens, Richard, Kent R. Jorgensen, Stanford A. Young, Stephen B. Monsen. 1996. Forb and Shrub Seed Production Guide for Utah. Utah State Univ. Extension AG501. Online at http://extension.usu.edu/files/agpubs/f&sguide.pdf
USDA NRCS, Pullman Plant Materials Center. 2005. Seed Weights of Some Palouse Native Species. Pullman Plant Materials Center, Pullman, Washington. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/~pmc_nrcs/Docs/Seed_Weights_Palouse_Native_Species.pdf
USDA NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 3 September 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.