About Eriogonum fasciculatum Benth.
Eriogonum fasciculatum Benth. is highly variable in its appearance. It grows as a patchy, compact mat or shrub that can reach up to 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) in height and 2.5 m (8.2 ft) across. Its stems are up to 25 centimetres (9.8 in) long, and their texture ranges from wooly to hairy to smooth, depending on the variety. The leaves are up to 1.5 cm (0.59 in) long and 4 mm (0.16 in) wide, with a long, narrow linear shape, and their leaf margins are rolled under. The inflorescence grows up to 20 cm (7.9 in) tall by 15 cm (5.9 in) wide, bearing 3 to 8 involucres that are up to 4 mm (0.16 in) tall and 3 mm (0.12 in) wide. Flowers grow in dense, frilly clusters; each individual flower is pink and white, and only a few millimeters across. The fruit is an achene, reaching up to 2.5 mm (0.098 in) in size and completely hairless. After fruit set, the dry calyx makes detached achenes buoyant, helping them disperse via wind and water.
This common shrub is native to the Southwestern United States, California, and northwestern Mexico. Its range extends from the coasts and deserts of California and Baja California east through the Southern California Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, and Peninsular Ranges, then further east into the Sonoran and Mojave deserts and the Great Basin. It also extends south through Baja California Sur to the Tres Virgenes and the Vizcaino Peninsula. It grows on slopes and in dry washes across a wide range of habitats, including chaparral, coastal sage scrub, grasslands, sagebrush scrub, pinyon-juniper woodland, and creosote bush scrub.
Eriogonum fasciculatum is cultivated as an ornamental plant. It is used for planting in native plant gardens, drought-tolerant gardens, and wildlife gardens, as well as in larger designed natural landscaping projects and habitat restoration projects. It is also planted in hedgerows to increase crop yields, for stabilization of post-fire areas, and for erosion control.
