Semi-desert, foothills, montane. Openings, shrublands, canyons, woodlands. Spring, summer.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 13, 2004.

Winged Buckwheat is a common plant of low mountains and foothills, and it is especially common in the sand and rock areas of Canyon Country.  It is often noticed, even in winter, as a mounded basal rosette of 2-4 inch long red/green leaves.  The slender, gangly, spindly flower stem from 2 to 5 feet tall grows from the basal rosette and in the spring produces a very airy sweep of tiny yellow flowers.  The seeds have three-winged appendages.  The basal rosette from which the flower stalk arose, and the flower stalk itself, die after the plant flowers.  Winged Buckwheat is thus termed "monocarpic", i.e., a plant which grows for a number of years without flowering and then dies after it flowers.  The dried, dark brown flower stalk persists for a year.  If there are other rosettes in the same clump, they may send up flower stalks in some future year.

In the photograph at left notice a short and twisted flower stalk four inches from the ground just in front of the ruler.  Eriogonum alatum has such stunted stalks fairly commonly; most often they come about because deer like to eat the emerging bud and stem.  This foraging does not, however, kill the stem and the plant re-grows a new stem (often a number of stems) from just below the nibbled area.   Perhaps the stem of the plant at left was nibbled at its very base; one new stem grew straight and tall and one became stunted.

The Eriogonum genus was named by famed botanist, Andre Michaux (1746-1803), in his 1803 Flora Boreali-Americana.  John Torrey named this species Eriogonum alatum in 1853 and H. Gross renamed it Pterogonum alatum.  The Synthesis of the North American Flora, the Flora of North America, and A Utah Flora all accept the name Eriogonum alatum.  

"Pter" is Greek for "winged".  "Ogonum" refers to the "Eriogonum" genus to which Winged Buckwheat originally belonged.  "Alatum" is Latin for "winged".  Thus Pterogonum alatum translates as, "the winged Eriogonum winged".  "Erio" is Greek for "wool" and "gono" for "knee", referring, according to William A. Weber, to the "wooly leaves and swollen joints of the type species".

Semi-desert, foothills, montane. Openings, shrublands, canyons, woodlands. Spring, summer.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, April 8, 2010.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, April 8, 2010.

Winged Buckwheat's basal rosette of leaves persists through the winter, almost always with strong tints of maroon in the leaves.  In early spring, chlorophyll masks the maroon and the plant adds more leaves.  The rosette grows from one to many years and eventually a tall flower stalk emerges.  The top rosette shown is two or three years old, but rosettes can grow many years and actually be mounded from the accumulation of many years of dried leaves -- as in the second photograph.

The dried leaves and mounding of the base also results from several sets of leaves being produced in each season, i.e., under drought conditions the first set of spring leaves dies and a new set surmounts it.  This may occur several times in a season.

Compare this over-wintering rosette with that of Ipomopsis aggregata.

Semi-desert, foothills, montane. Openings, shrublands, canyons, woodlands. Spring, summer.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 13, 2004.

Early buds are ready to burst open; several have opened in the lower left.

Semi-desert, foothills, montane. Openings, shrublands, canyons, woodlands. Spring, summer.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, June 6, 2005.

Fully opened flowers and hairy buds are both just a few millimeters across.

Semi-desert, foothills, montane. Openings, shrublands, canyons, woodlands. Spring, summer.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, June 6, 2005.

Winged seeds are the source of the plant's scientific and common names.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Eriogonum alatum