Desert Trumpet
Eriogonum inflatum
Photographed at Vulture Peak, Maricopa Co., Arizona. March 2008.
FLOWERS: A tall, distinct stem often with an inflated bulb (the trumpet)
just below a much branched inflorescence. Bright yellow flowers are six parted
and arranged at the tips of slender stalks of intricately branched inflorescence. At each junction the stalks
usu. divide into three smaller stalks eventually becoming thread-thin. Plants
with or without the trumpet structure have been given varietal status.
LEAVES: Oval-oblong to kidney-shaped leaves are shiny and have a rippled
texture. Virtually all of the leaves are in a basal rosette - this keeps the
leaves close to the ground and out of the drying winds.
ANNUAL: In the Sonoran Desert this plant is a long lived annual
sometimes persisting from season to season. Robust plants of early spring
likely survived from the previous fall.
FRUIT: Small, single seeded fruits are three-sided like other
buckwheats.
RANGE: Common in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Mexico in washes and
on rocky slopes. Also ranges into Great Basin and Mojave Deserts.
UNARMED