Wild buckwheat is the genus Eriogonum, not the grain in your pantry.. This page starts with that question because it is the most useful way into the subject. It names the visible structure, keeps the vocabulary plain and points to the source trail instead of asking the reader to accept an unexplained conclusion.
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Wild buckwheat is not the grain in your pantry. The name belongs to Eriogonum, a genus of some 250 species of shrubs, mats and cushion plants native to western North America, most of them adapted to dry ground. The edible buckwheat is an unrelated Old World plant, Fagopyrum esculentum, grown as a crop and milled into flour. The two share a common name and little else. One is a field crop harvested in summer; the other is a wild plant of sagebrush hillsides, chaparral edges and desert slopes, and it is the one a western gardener can plant and keep for decades. A field journal such as The Umbel Journal follows the genus species by species, which is a useful place to begin if the names matter to you.
What is a wild buckwheat, and how does it differ from the buckwheat grain we eat?
A wild buckwheat is a plant in the genus Eriogonum, in the knotweed family, Polygonaceae. The genus is almost entirely North American, with the greatest concentration of species in California, the Great Basin and the desert Southwest. It grows as low mats, rounded subshrubs, tall woody shrubs and, in a few cases, as small trees of the high desert. The grain buckwheat belongs to a different genus, Fagopyrum, native to Asia and long cultivated in Europe and North America. It is an annual grown for its seed, which is ground into flour or eaten as groats. Nothing in the wild genus is harvested that way. The practical difference shows in the garden. Grain buckwheat is sown, cut and replanted each year. Wild buckwheats are perennials, often long lived, and they are grown for flowers, foliage and the insects they feed rather than for a crop. Their flowers are tiny, clustered in dense heads, and they hold color for weeks in the hottest part of the year, when little else in a dry garden is blooming.
How do you identify a wild buckwheat on a hike?
Identification rests on three features, and the third is the one that settles the question. Start with the flowers. What looks like a single bloom is a cluster of many very small flowers, usually white, cream, yellow or pink, held above the foliage on slender stalks. The color often deepens or fades as the cluster ages, so a hillside in August may show cream, pink and rust on the same plant. Look next at the leaves. Most species carry leaves in a basal rosette or low on the stems. They are simple, entire, and commonly covered with fine white or gray hairs, which gives the foliage a silvery or woolly look and helps the plant reflect heat. Leaf shape ranges from round to narrow and spoon shaped, and the leaf margins are smooth rather than toothed. The decisive feature is the involucre. In Eriogonum, the small flowers are not borne directly on the branch. Each cluster sits inside a cup of fused bracts, a small structure called an involucre, and the flowers emerge from it. This cup is characteristic of the genus. Once you learn to see it, a plant that looked like a dozen other gray shrubs becomes unmistakable. A hand lens helps. So does a regional flora, since the genus is large and several species grow side by side. The reward is that the same plant you name on a hike is often the one worth planting at home.
Which buckwheat should a small dry garden start with?
For a first planting, choose a species native to your own region and suited to your soil. Two are widely grown and forgiving. Sulfur buckwheat, Eriogonum umbellatum, is the most adaptable of the common species. It forms a low mat or small mound, usually under two feet, with gray green leaves and clusters of yellow flowers that age to orange and rust. It tolerates cold, heat, poor soil and, once established, very little water. It is the safest first choice across much of the West. California buckwheat, Eriogonum fasciculatum, is a larger shrub, three to four feet in most gardens, with narrow green leaves and pinkish white flower heads that dry to a warm rust brown and hold their shape into winter. It is at home in hot, dry sites and in the low elevations of California and the Southwest. Saint Catherine's lace, Eriogonum giganteum, is the largest of the three and the most striking, with broad gray leaves and flat white flower heads up to a foot across. It is native to the Channel Islands and coastal southern California, and it needs excellent drainage and a mild climate. Plant in autumn, when the soil is warm and the rains are coming. Give full sun, sharp drainage and no rich soil. Water through the first summer, then taper off. A little light pruning after the flowers dry keeps the plant compact and prevents it from splitting open in the middle.
Why do these plants matter to bees and butterflies?
Wild buckwheats flower in late summer and early autumn, a season when much of the western landscape has finished blooming. That timing makes them a dependable nectar source for native bees, honeybees, butterflies and hummingbirds at the point in the year when other forage is scarce. Gardeners who plant for insects often notice the effect within a season. A single sulfur buckwheat in full flower can be busy with several kinds of bee at once, and the flat, open flower heads give butterflies a place to land and feed. The dried heads that follow are not dead weight. They hold structure and color through winter and are used by small insects as shelter. This is one reason the genus appears so often in native plant gardens and in restoration seed mixes. It is not only ornamental. It does ecological work in a season that is otherwise quiet.
How do you grow a buckwheat from seed?
Seed is the usual way to start, and the main obstacle is dormancy. Many species germinate poorly without a period of cold, moist conditions. Sow in autumn in a flat or a deep pot, cover lightly, and leave the container outdoors through winter so that rain and cold do the work. In mild climates, or if you sow in spring, give the seed four to six weeks of cold moist stratification in a refrigerator before sowing. Germination is often uneven, spread over weeks, so keep the flat for a full season before giving up on it. Seedlings are slow at first and resent disturbance. Transplant them while small, into a spot with sharp drainage, and water them through their first summer. After that, most species need little or nothing beyond what the climate provides. Overwatering and heavy soil kill more buckwheats than cold does.
Where does the name come from, and who mapped the genus?
The common name is a puzzle. The plants are not related to the grain, and the resemblance is in the seed, which is small, triangular and brown, like a buckwheat groat. Early settlers applied the familiar name to an unfamiliar plant. The scientific name Eriogonum comes from Greek roots meaning woolly joints, a reference to the hairy nodes on the stems of many species. The genus was described in the early nineteenth century, and its modern shape owes much to the botanist James L. Reveal, who spent decades revising the group and clarifying which plants were species and which were variations of the same one. That work continues. Regional floras differ on some names, and new species are still being described. For a gardener, the practical point is simpler. Learn the involucre, learn two or three local species, and the rest of the genus becomes a set of variations on a theme you already know.
