Which buckwheat is that?

Count on it. I spy a few patches of green poking their way up through the earth and immediately begin thinking of flowers -- particularly wildflowers. Which for some unfathomable reason reminded me of my favorite mystery plant, one I am pretty sure is a buckwheat (eriogonum), American-style as opposed to buckwheat, European or pancake style.

This grey-green shrubby perennial is found all over the Prescott area. About 12" high, it begins to grow long leafless stems in mid to late summer, which will suddenly turn into white fluffy displays at the end of summer.

As the season wears on, the flowers gradually turn a brilliant rust color.

Close-up, the flower clusters are really quite pretty. This plant has frustrated me for years -- it is so very common here but I've yet to find a picture or a description in any of my layman's field manuals. However, my favorite A Field Guide to the Plants of Arizona by Anne Orth Epple, did have this to say: almost all species of eriogonum are difficult to identify, even for the expert botanist. For the amateur, simply recognizing wild buckwheat as such is an accomplishment. So there! Epple says that there are 53 species of eriogonum in Arizona. (Note: No doubt the plant is described in McDougall, but that's for the real pro's among us, not me.) Just incidentally, one plant list referred specifically to a Yavapai County buckwheat variety common in the Prescott area.

Walking along a neighborhood alleyway this past summer, I noticed that a tallish, straggly plant most people would label a weed was putting out the same kind of long, leafless stalk preparatory to blooming. Aha! Likely another buckwheat, sez I.

Once the plants blossomed, I broke off a few stems to photograph up close in my kitchen table studio. These flowers, BTW, are really quite tiny. But again, quite pretty, even spectacular if you're snail or grasshopper or bumblebee size.

The buckwheat that the gardener is going to find at such wildflower outlets as Flagstaff Native Plant & Seed is the showy sulphur buckwheat, which is quite common in the high country. The best specimens that I have seen were at the top of Mingus. I tried one plant -- and failed miserably. (FYI, this post is dedicated to my aggie SIL, who first turned me onto the buckwheat family.)

Follow Up: I posted a query to the AZPlants mailing list and received this response from an individual at New Mexico State University, the first 8 [pictures] look to be Eriogonum wrightii, while the next three are probably Eriogonum polycladon. With a label, I was able to check further in my little southwestern library and struck gold. Judy Mielke writes in Native Plants for Southwestern Landscapes, Wright Buckwheat blooms after many other desert plants have finished, so it can be used in flower gardens to extend the flowering season. A mass planting could be used for ground cover on either flat areas or slopes. A good suggestion; my plants are up the hillside, though I could do with a lot more plants to achieve that ground cover look. BTW, any Valley residents -- the Wrights is happiest at 3000-7000 ft. elevation, which probably lets it out as a good candidate for Phoenix gardens.