Eriogonum covilleanum

Coville's wild buckwheat

Family: Polygonaceae · Type: annual · Native

Coville's wild buckwheat is a California native annual found in central coastal and western Transverse Ranges in shale or serpentine habitats at elevations of 200 to 1,400 meters. Flowering from April to August, this plant produces pink flowers that may turn white, rose, or yellow in fruit, with delicate narrowly elliptic perianth lobes. Growing 10 to 40 centimeters tall with glabrous stems, it develops distinctive basal leaves that are approximately round, with woolly undersides and smooth upper surfaces. Its leaves are small, measuring 3 to 15 millimeters long, with a soft, dense texture that helps distinguish it in its rocky habitat. The plant produces compact involucres at the tips of slender branchlets, each 2 to 2.5 millimeters wide and glabrous.

Habitat: Uncommon. Shale or serpentine

Bloom period: Apr-Aug

Elevation: 200-1400 m

Bioregions: c&amps CW, WTR.

California counties: San Luis Obispo, Stanislaus, Fresno, San Benito, Monterey, Kern, Santa Clara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Merced, San Bernardino, Colusa, Lake, Contra Costa, Santa Barbara

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.