Blooms: May-July
Habit: herb
Duration: perennial
Origin: Native
Conservation Status: Abundant; of no concern.

Distribution: Occurring east of the Cascades crest in Washington; Washington south to California, east to Montana, Idaho, and Nevada.
Habitat: Sandy or rocky soils, sagebrush desert to ponderosa pine forests.

Species Description:

General: Perennial with woody stems up to 1 dm. long, the several flowering stems to 3 dm. tall, usually white-woolly throughout and more or less freely branched.
Leaves: Mostly basal, the blades elliptic to ovate, 5-25 mm. long, usually white-woolly on the lower surface and less so on the top, on petioles as long to 4 times as along as the blades.
Flowers: Flowering stems leafless, the inflorescence from open and freely branched with the involucres single at the branch tips to umbellate and the involucres somewhat clustered; with small, linear bracts at the forks of the branches; involucres narrowly cup-shaped, with 5 triangular, erect, short teeth; tepals white or cream to pinkish or yellow, 3-4 mm. long, divided nearly to the non-stipitate base, the segments oblong, the outer twice as broad as the inner.

Distinguishing Characteristics: Eriogonum strictum plants with the branched inflorescence may be separated from the similar E. niveum by the bracts at the branch joints, which are small and thread-like in E. strictum and leaf-like in E. niveum. The E. strictum plants with umbellate and somewhat compressed flower clusters may be confused with E. ovalifolium when the tight, head-like flower clusters of the latter are in umbels instead of single. If the perianth color is bright pink to rose-red, it is probably E. ovalifolium, since E. strictum has only rarely a blush of pink, never a deep color. If the flowers are cream-colored, the location may help: Sub-alpine û E. ovalifolium; shrub-steppe or ponderosa pine forests û probably E. strictum.

Subspecies & Varieties:

Eriogonum strictum Benth.

Treated in Flora of the PNW as:

PNW Herbaria Specimens: View list of Eriogonum strictum specimens in the Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria database.

WTU Herbarium Specimens: View list of Eriogonum strictum specimens in the WTU Herbarium database.

Washington Flora Checklist: Eriogonum strictum treatment.

E-Flora BC: Eriogonum strictum atlas page.

CalPhotos: Eriogonum strictum images.

USDA Plants Database: Eriogonum strictum.