''Eriogonum tripodum'' is a rare species of wild buckwheat known by the common name tripod duckwheat. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, where it is known from the Sierra Nevada foothills and northern sections of the Coast Ranges.

Description

''Eriogonum tripodum'' is generally part of the

serpentine soil Serpentine soil is an uncommon soil type produced by weathered ultramafic rock such as peridotite and its metamorphic derivatives such as serpentinite. More precisely, serpentine soil contains minerals of the serpentine subgroup, especially an ...

s flora. This is a spreading

subshrub A subshrub (Latin ''suffrutex'') or undershrub is either a small shrub (e.g. prostrate shrubs) or a perennial that is largely herbaceous but slightly woody at the base (e.g. garden pink and florist's chrysanthemum). The term is often interch ...

growing up to about half a meter tall and wide with mostly hairless flowering stems arising from a

caudex A caudex (: caudices) of a plant is a stem, but the term is also used to mean a rootstock and particularly a basal stem structure from which new growth arises.pages 456 and 695 In the strict sense of the term, meaning a stem, "caudex" is most ...

. The base of the plant is covered in clusters of widely lance-shaped leaves which are woolly in texture, especially on the undersides. The

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

atop the stem is a head or

umbel UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer) is a logically organized knowledge graph of 34,000 concepts and entity types that can be used in information science for relating information from disparate sources to one another. It was retired ...

of bright yellow flowers, each of which is hairy and connected to the cluster by a very narrow base like a stalk.

External links

Jepson Manual Treatment - ''Eriogonum tripodum''''Eriogonum tripodum'' - Photo gallery
tripodum Endemic flora of California Flora of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Natural history of the California Coast Ranges Flora without expected TNC conservation status {{Polygonaceae-stub