BUCKWHEAT FAMILY. Polygonaceac 



There are many kinds of Eriogonum, herbs or shrubs, 

 natives of America, mostly western, growing in dry places, 

 very numerous and difficult to distinguish. The leaves, 

 without sheaths or stipules, are often covered with white 

 down and usually grow in a spreading cluster at the base of 

 the stem. The numerous small flowers, on very slender 

 little pedicels, have six sepals, thin in texture and usually 

 colored, and form clusters of various shapes, which emerge 

 from more or less bell-shaped or top-shaped involucres, 

 with six teeth. There are nine stamens, with threadlike 

 filaments, often hairy, and a three-parted style with round- 

 top stigmas. The name is from the Greek meaning 

 " wooly knees, " in allusion to the wooly joints of the stem. 

 This is a most extraordinary looking 

 Eriogonum plant, with queer inflated, hollow stalks, 



inflatum about two feet high, swelling larger to- 



Yellow wards the top, and the branches, which 



pnng are also swollen, sticking out awkwardly 



Southwest ... 



in all directions and bearing a few minute, 



yellow flowers. The stalks, which are pale bluish-green, 

 suggest some strange sort of reed, but the dark-green 

 leaves, growing in a rosette at the base, are something like 

 the leaves of cultivated violets and seem entirely out of 

 keeping with the rest of the plant. This grows on the 

 plateau in the Grand Canyon and in similar places. 



This is about a foot and a half tall and 

 Swollen-stalk 



Eriogonum cltoum fche stem 1S swollen, but not so much so as 

 White, pink the last, and the flowers are more con- 



Summer spicuous, forming rather flat-topped clus- 



Northwest ier ^ a k out three-quarters of an inch 



across. The tiny flowers are cream-white or pinkish, the 

 buds are deep-pink, and the stamens are long, with tiny, 



