These compact plants with numerous, erect, densely-hairy stems reach 10-inches high by 6-inches wide. Showy clusters of tiny, white flowers grow from forking branch tips. Look for leaf-like bracts whorled around the nodes of the flower branches and 3–10 leaf-like stipules below the flower cluster.

FLOWER: June–October. Dense, rounded clusters (umbels) of creamy-white, 3/8-inch (10 mm) wide flowers cover the branch tips. Note the tiny 1/16-inch long (0.7–2 mm) stem-like stipe at the base of each flower. The stamens are longer than the petals and have red to yellow anthers. Showy heads of pinkish-brown, 1/8-inch long seeds (achenes) follow blooming.

LEAVES: Basal with whorls of leaf-like bracts at nodes below flower clusters. Leaf blades narrowly elliptic, 3/8–1-inch (10–25 mm) long by 1/8–3/8-inch (3–10 mm) wide, are densely hairy on the bottom, sparsely on top. Margins are entire, and depending on the variety, either flat (var. jamesii), widesperad in NM; or wavy to crisped (var. undulatum) in Hidalgo County.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly soils of grasslands, mesquite-creosote bush scrublands, pinyon-juniper woodlands.

ELEVATION: 4,800–7,500 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, KS, NM, TX, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The highly variable Abert’s Buckwheat, E. abertianum, also has whorled leaves around branch nodes and hairy leaf-like bracts but is annual and stamens shorter than the petals. Also with white to pink flowers, the bushy Wright’s Buckwheat, E. wrightii, widespread especially sw NM, is woolly all over, has white flowers with a pinkish stripe under the petals (sepals), and doesn’t have leaves around the flower branch nodes. Redroot Buckwheat, E. racemosum, reaching higher elevations, has a single, leafless stem with several erect upper spike-like flowering branches and a persistent rosette of spoon-to spatula-shaped leaves.

NM COUNTIES: Statewide at mid-elevation, dry habitats except Chaves, Lea, Roosevelt.