Clipped wild buckwheat

Plants cespitose, flattened and matlike, 0.05-0.2 × 0.5-3.5 dm. Aerial flowering stems (0.01-)0.02-0.05(-0.12) dm, silky-tomentose. Leaves: petiole 0.1-0.3 cm; blade narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, 0.4-0.8(-1.2) × 0.1-0.3(-0.35) cm. Inflorescences capitate, 0.3-0.85 cm; branches absent. Involucres 1 per node, 2-3.5 mm. Flowers 3-4.5 mm.

Flowering May-Jul. Rocky limestone flats and slopes, pinyon-juniper woodlands; 2100-2300 m; N.Mex.

Variety colobum occurs on a low, windswept, limestone ridgetop north and east of Thoreau, McKinley County. It also occurs to the northeast on gravelly soil on the western edge of the Rio Grande Gorge in Taos County. The scapes and inflorescences are buried among the leaves, the flowers spotting the tops of the mats with specks of yellow. The variety is worthy of cultivation.