Erica lusitanica is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, known by the common names Portuguese heath and Spanish heath. It is native to Portugal, Spain and southwestern France. It is named for Lusitania, a historical region encompassing most of modern Portugal and parts of western Spain.


Erica lusitanica is a hairy, woody shrub just under 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) in maximum height. It is densely covered in plumes of green, leathery, needle-like evergreen leaves each less than a centimeter long. Flowers appear between the leaves, singly or in small clusters, in winter and spring. Each is a hanging rounded tubular bell of fused light pink-to-white petals. The fruit is a capsule a few millimeters long filled with minuscule seeds small enough to disperse on the wind. A single plant can produce millions of seeds per year.


Erica lusitanica is cultivated as an ornamental plant for gardens. Like others of its kind it is a calcifuge and prefers an open, sunny site in acid soil. It is typically seen in the company of other heathers and mixed conifers. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


Garden escapes easily become introduced species and sometimes invasive species—noxious weeds in certain climates. It has naturalised in the British Isles, California, Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand.


Erica tetralix, the cross-leaved heath, is a species of flowering plant in the family Ericaceae, native to western Europe, from southern Portugal to central Norway, as well as a number of boggy regions further from the coast in Central Europe such as Austria and Switzerland. In bogs, wet heaths and damp coniferous woodland, E. tetralix can become a dominant part of the flora. It has also been introduced to parts of North America.


It is a perennial subshrub with small pink bell-shaped drooping flowers borne in compact clusters at the ends of its shoots, and leaves in whorls of four (whence the name). The flowers appear in summer and autumn. The distinction between E. tetralix and the related species Erica cinerea is that the linear leaves are usually glandular and in whorls of four, while those of Erica cinerea are glabrous and borne in whorls of three. The leaves of Calluna vulgaris are much smaller and scale-like and borne in opposite and decussate pairs. The sticky, adhesive glands on leaves, sepals and other parts of the plant prompted Charles Darwin to suggest that this species might be a protocarnivorous plant, but little, if any, research has been done on this.


In cultivation, like other heathers, E. tetralix requires an acidic soil, as it is a calcifuge. Numerous cultivars have been developed for garden use, of which E. tetralix f. alba 'Alba Mollis' (a white-flowered variety) and E. tetralix 'Pink Star'  have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.


Ericameria ericoides, known by the common names California goldenbush, mock heather, and California heathgoldenrod, is a species of flowering shrubs in the family Asteraceae. It is endemic to California, where it grows in the sand dunes and coastal hills between the northern San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles area.


Ericameria ericoides is a shrub that rarely approaches a maximum height of 1 metre (3.3 ft). It is densely foliated with comblike fans of small cylindrical leaves up to a centimeter long.
Its small erect branches are topped with inflorescences of small golden yellow flower heads, each with several disc florets and a few ray florets.


Erigeron acer is a widespread herbaceous flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. Common names include bitter fleabane and blue fleabane. The species is native to Canada, colder parts of the United States, northern, central, and southeastern Asia, and most of Europe.
Erigeron acer is a biennial or perennial herb up to 100 cm (40 inches) tall, producing a taproot and a woody rhizome. One plant can produce many small flower heads, each with pink, lilac, or occasionally white ray florets and yellow disc florets.
Subspecies:
Erigeron acris subsp. droebachiensis (O.F.Müll.) Arcang. (synonym: Erigeron droebachiensis O.F.Müll.)


Erigeron annuus (formerly Aster annuus), the annual fleabane, daisy fleabane, or eastern daisy fleabane, is a species of herbaceous, annual or biennial flowering plant in the family Asteraceae.


Erigeron annuus often grows as an annual but can sometimes grow as a biennial. It is herbaceous with alternate, simple leaves, and green, sparsely hairy stems, which can grow to between 30 and 150 centimeters (about 1 to 5 feet) in height. Leaves are numerous and large relative to other species of Erigeron, with lower leaves, especially basal leaves, coarsely toothed or cleft, a characteristic readily distinguishing this species from most other Erigeron. Upper leaves are sometimes (not always) toothed, but may have a few coarse teeth towards the outer tips.
The flower heads are white with yellow centers, with rays that are white to pale lavender, borne spring through fall depending on the individual plant.  Ray florets number 40 to 100.


Erigeron  annuus is native to North America and Central America. It is widespread in most of the United States, especially in the eastern part of its range, but occurs only in scattered locations in the western and southernmost parts of its range. It has been introduced to many other places, including Korea, Europe, India, and other areas in Asia.
Erigeron annuus grows well in full through partial sun on sites with ample moisture. It is tolerant of a wide range of soil conditions, including gravel and clay. In hot, dry weather, lower leaves often yellow and wither.


Erigeron annuus is a native pioneer species that often colonizes disturbed areas such as pastures, abandoned fields, vacant lots, roadsides, railways, and waste areas.  In these habitats it competes, often successfully, with introduced invasive weeds.
Flowers are pollinated by a variety of bees, including little carpenter bees, cuckoo bees, halictine bees, and masked bees; as well as flies, including syrphid flies, bee flies, tachinid flies, flesh flies, anthomyiid flies, and muscid flies. Wasps, small butterflies, and other insects also visit the flowers to a lesser degree, seeking nectar, as well as a few pollen-feeding beetles.
Schinia lynx (lynx flower moth) caterpillars feed on the flowers and seeds of annual fleabane and other fleabanes, and Lygus lineolaris (tarnished plant bug) sucks the plant juices. Some mammals eat the foliage, flowers and stems, including sheep, groundhogs, and rabbits.


Erigeron bonariensis is a species of Erigeron, found throughout the tropics and subtropics as a pioneer plant; its precise origin is unknown, but most likely it stems from Central America or South America. It has become naturalized in many other regions, including North America, Europe and Australia.


Common names include flax-leaf fleabane, wavy-leaf fleabane, Argentine fleabane, hairy horseweed, asthma weed and hairy fleabane.


Erigeron bonariensis grows up to 75 cm (29.5 in) in height and its leaves are covered with stiff hairs, including long hairs near the apex of the bracts. Its flower heads have white ray florets and yellow disc florets. It can easily be confused with Erigeron canadensis, which grows taller, and E. sumatrensis.
It flowers in August and continues fruiting until the first frosts. It is instantly recognisable by its blue-green foliage, very narrow, undulate stem-leaves, and purple-tipped involucral bracts. It reproduces only by seed, which are easily blown and spread by wind.


Erigeron bonariensis is a rare alien in southeastern England, found along walls and in cracks in pavements and concrete driveways. It is widespread throughout Australia, where it thrives on roadsides, fallows, pastures, gardens, lawns, footpaths, parks, riparian vegetation, forest and wetland perimeters, waste dumps and disturbed grounds.


Erigeron canadensis (synonym Conyza canadensis) is an annual plant native throughout most of North America and Central America. It is also widely naturalized in Eurasia and Australia. Common names include horseweed, Canadian horseweed, Canadian fleabane, coltstail, marestail, and butterweed. It was the first weed to have developed glyphosate resistance, reported in 2001 from Delaware.


Erigeron canadensis is an annual plant growing to 1.5 m (60 in) tall, with sparsely hairy stems. The leaves are unstalked, slender, 2–10 centimetres (0.79–3.94 in) long, and up to 1 cm (0.4 inches) across, with a coarsely toothed margin. They grow in an alternate spiral up the stem and the lower ones wither early. The flowers are produced in dense inflorescences 1 cm in diameter. Each individual flower has a ring of white or pale purple ray florets and a centre of yellow disc florets. The fruit is a cypsela tipped with dirty white down.
Erigeron canadensis can easily be confused with Erigeron sumatrensis, which may grow to a height of 2 m, and the more hairy Erigeron bonariensis, which does not exceed 1 m (40 in). E. canadensis is distinguished by bracts that have a brownish inner surface and no red dot at the tip, and are free (or nearly free) of the hairs found on the bracts of the other species.


Horseweed originated in North America and is very widespread there, but has spread to inhabited areas of most of the temperate zone of Asia, Europe, and Australia. It is found in Britain from northern Scotland to Cornwall, growing as a weed of arable land and man-made environments. It considered invasive in China.


Horseweed is commonly considered a weed, and in Ohio, it has been declared a noxious weed. It can be found in fields, meadows, and gardens throughout its native range.  Horseweed infestations have reduced soybean yields by as much as 83%. It is an especially problematic weed in no-till agriculture, as it is often resistant to glyphosate and other herbicides. Farmers are advised to include 2,4-D or dicamba in a burndown application prior to planting to control horseweed.


Cineraria canescens is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to southern Africa (Namibia and South Africa). It was first described in 1822.


Erigeron glaucus is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common name seaside fleabane, beach aster, or seaside daisy. It is native to the  West Coast of the United States.


E. glaucus is a perennial daisy reaching heights between 5 and 40 centimetres (2 and 15+1⁄2 inches) with branching, nodding stems which may be glandular and hairy to hairless. It grows from a stout rhizome and produces thick, firm, rounded to spoon-shaped leaves, sometimes with a few teeth along the edges, each 2–13 cm (3⁄4–5 in) long. From April to August, its stems bear inflorescences of 1–15 flower heads which vary in size from about 1 to 6.5 cm (1⁄2 to 2+1⁄2 in) wide. The centers contain golden yellow disc florets and the edges are fringed with about 100 ray florets which may be long or quite short, and are shades of deep blue and purple to nearly white. The fruit is seed-like with many bristles at the tip.
Unusual for its genus (but not for plants near the coast), the plant is somewhat succulent.


The wildflower is native to the coastline of Oregon and California where it grows on beaches, coastal bluffs and dunes. While typical habitats include coastal bluffs, one highly specialised plant association is found within the two Cupressus macrocarpa dominant forests in Monterey County, California.


E. glaucus occurs in several different plant associations. One of the specialized habitats is within the Monterey cypress forests of the Central California coast.


Erigeron karvinskianus, the Mexican fleabane, is a species of daisy-like flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to Mexico and parts of Central America.
Other common names include Latin American fleabane, Santa Barbara daisy, Spanish daisy, Karwinsky's fleabane, or bony-tip fleabane.


It is a vigorous, spreading perennial plant growing from woody rhizomes to a maximum height of 15 cm (5.9 in). Its leaves are located along the stem, the basal leaves dying off as the plant bolts. They are sometimes slightly toothed or lobed near the tips. The inflorescences hold one or more flower heads which are each about 1 cm (0.4 inches) wide. They have golden yellow disc florets in the center surrounded by a fringe of up to 80 white to pinkish ray florets.


In the UK, it flowers from May to October.


Erigeron karvinskianus is native to much of Mexico, Central America, Colombia and Venezuela. and is naturalized in many other places, including parts of Africa and Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Chile and the west coast of the United States.


The plant was first described in 1836 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. The specific epithet refers to Wilhelm Friedrich Karwinski von Karwin, who collected the plant in Mexico according to de Candolle.


Erigeron karvinskianus is also cultivated for its daisy-like blooms, and is often confused with the closely related true daisy Bellis perennis. It is frequently grown in crevices in walls or paving, where it rapidly spreads to provide a carpet of flowers. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.  It was used to colonise the concrete terraces of the football stadium (Estadio Azteca) built in Mexico City for the 1970 World Cup.


Erigeron strigosus is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names prairie fleabane, common eastern fleabane, and daisy fleabane.
Erigeron strigosus is native to eastern and central North America as far west as Manitoba, Idaho and Texas. It has also become naturalized in western North America as well as in Europe and China as a somewhat weedy naturalized species.
Erigeron strigosus is an annual or biennial herb reaching heights of up to 80 cm (32 inches). It has hairy, petioled, non-clasping, oval-shaped leaves a few centimeters long mostly on the lower part of the plant. One plant can produce as many as 200 flower heads in a spindly array of branching stems. Each head is less than a centimeter (0.4 inches) wide, containing 50–100 white, pink, or blue ray florets surrounding numerous yellow disc florets.
Varieties
Erigeron strigosus var. calcicola J. R. Allison - Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee
Erigeron strigosus var. dolomiticola J. R. Allison - Alabama
Erigeron strigosus var. strigosus - much of North America; introduced in China
Erigeron strigosus var. septentrionalis (Fernald & Wiegand) Fernald - much of North America; introduced in Europe


The loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) is a large evergreen shrub or tree, grown commercially for its orange fruit and for its leaves, which are used to make herbal tea. It is also cultivated as an ornamental plant.
The loquat is in the family Rosaceae, and is native to the cooler hill regions of south-central China. In Japan the loquat is known as biwa (枇杷, びわ) and has been grown for over 1,000 years. The loquat has been introduced to regions with subtropical to mild temperate climates throughout the world.
Eriobotrya japonica was formerly thought to be closely related to the genus Mespilus, and is still sometimes mistakenly known as the Japanese medlar. It is also known as Japanese plum and Chinese plum, as well as pipa in China, naspli in Malta, Lukaat in India, níspero in Spain, nêspera in Portugal, akidéné in Lebanon and nespolo in Italy (where the name is shared with Mespilus germanica).


Eriobotrya japonica is a large evergreen shrub or small tree, with a rounded crown, short trunk and woolly new twigs. The tree can grow to 5–10 metres (16–33 ft) tall, but is often smaller, about 3–4 metres (10–13 ft). The fruit begins to ripen during spring to summer depending on the temperature in the area. The leaves are alternate, simple, 10–25 centimetres (4–10 in) long, dark green, tough and leathery in texture, with a serrated margin, and densely velvety-hairy below with thick yellow-brown pubescence; the young leaves are also densely pubescent above, but this soon rubs off.


Loquats are unusual among fruit trees in that the flowers appear in the autumn or early winter, and the fruits are ripe at any time from early spring to early summer. The flowers are 2 cm (3⁄4 in) in diameter, white, with five petals, and produced in stiff panicles of three to ten flowers. The flowers have a sweet, heady aroma that can be smelled from a distance.
Loquat fruits, growing in clusters, are oval, rounded or pear-shaped, 3–5 centimetres (1+1⁄8–2 in) long, with a smooth or downy, yellow or orange, sometimes red-blushed skin. The succulent, tangy flesh is white, yellow or orange and sweet to subacid or acid, depending on the cultivar.
Each fruit contains from one to ten ovules, with three to five being most common.  A variable number of the ovules mature into large brown seeds (with different numbers of seeds appearing in each fruit on the same tree, usually between one and four).


The plant is originally from China, where related species can be found growing in the wild. It has been cultivated there for over a thousand years. It has also become naturalised in Georgia,  Armenia, Afghanistan, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bermuda, Chile, Kenya, Lebanon, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, South Africa, the whole Mediterranean Basin, Pakistan, New Zealand, Réunion, Tonga, Central America, Mexico, South America and in warmer parts of the United States (Hawaii, California, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina).  In Louisiana, many refer to loquats as "misbeliefs" and they grow in yards of homes. Chinese immigrants are presumed to have carried the loquat to Hawaii and California. It has been cultivated in Japan for about 1,000 years and presumably the fruits and seeds were brought back from China to Japan by the many Japanese scholars visiting and studying in China during the Tang Dynasty.
The loquat was often mentioned in medieval Chinese literature, such as the poems of Li Bai. Its original name is no longer used in most Chinese dialects, and has been replaced by pipa (枇杷), which is a reference to the fruit's visual resemblance to a miniature pipa lute.
The first European record of the species might have been in the 16th century by Michał Boym, a Polish jesuit, orientalist, politician and missionary to China. He described loquat in his Flora sinensis, the first European natural history book about China. The common name for the fruit is from Portuguese nêspera (from the modified nespilus, originally mespilus, which referred to the medlar), (José Pedro Machado, Dicionário Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa, 1967). Since the first contact of the Portuguese with the Japanese and Chinese dates also from the sixteenth century, it is possible that some were brought back to Europe, as was probably the case with other species like the hachiya persimmon variety.
Eriobotrya japonica was again described in Europe by Carl Peter Thunberg, as Mespilus japonica in 1780, and was relocated to the genus Eriobotrya (from Greek εριο "wool" and βοτρυών "cluster") by John Lindley, who published these changes in 1821.
The most common variety in Portugal is the late ripening Tanaka, where it is popular in gardens and backyards, but not commercially produced. In northern Portugal it is also popularly called magnório/magnólio, probably something to do with the French botanist Pierre Magnol. In Spain, the fruits are similarly called "nísperos" and are commercially exploited, Spain being the largest producer worldwide, after China, with  41,487t annually, half of which is destined to export markets.


Over 800 loquat cultivars exist in Asia. Self-fertile variants include the 'Gold Nugget' and 'Mogi' cultivars. The loquat is easy to grow in subtropical to mild temperate climates where it is often primarily grown as an ornamental plant, especially for its sweet-scented flowers, and secondarily for its delicious fruit. The boldly textured foliage adds a tropical look to gardens, contrasting well with many other plants.
There are many named cultivars, with orange or white flesh.  Some cultivars are intended for home-growing, where the flowers open gradually, and thus the fruit also ripens gradually, compared to the commercially grown species where the flowers open almost simultaneously, and the whole tree's fruit also ripens together.
China is the biggest producer of loquat in the world, more than 5 times the production of the 2nd biggest producer Spain, followed by Pakistan and Turkey.  In Europe, Spain is the main producer of loquat.
In temperate climates it is grown as an ornamental with winter protection, as the fruits seldom ripen to an edible state.  In the United Kingdom, it has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
In the US, the loquat tree is hardy only in USDA zones 8 and above, and will flower only where winter temperatures do not fall below 30 °F (−1 °C). In such areas, the tree flowers in autumn and the fruit ripens in late winter. It is popular in the East, as well as the South.
However, loquats have been reported to survive temperatures as cold as −12 °F (−24 °C) for short periods of time. On the other side of the temperature spectrum, it is unclear what maximum temperature loquats can cultivate in. However, the loquat grows poorly if the temperature is "too tropical".
Altitude is an important factor to consider as well. Loquats grow naturally anywhere from 3,000 to 7,000 feet (910 to 2,130 m). However the right altitudes will vary depending on the temperature or how close it is to the equator. This contributes to why higher altitudes in China or the Andes mountains make excellent cultivating spots.
China is a major country where loquats grow natively and they grow wild in forests around the mountains. However, loquats are cultivated on around 300,000 acres (121,406 ha) with hundreds of different varieties
In the United States cultivation is not country-wide, typically with the southern and western states taking most of the responsibility. Cultivating in the United States has not been very popular due to its lack of interest in markets. However, the one advantage the loquat has among others is its fruit becomes available in late April – early May around a time many other fruits are not ready yet.
In Russia, loquat produces fruits in subtropical and near-subtropical areas (Gelendzhik, Sochi). Loquat also produces fruits in subtropical areas of Georgia.
In Canada, it can be found growing in Vancouver, though it does not produce fruits. More frost-resistant varieties grow and produce fruits in Sidney, British Columbia, though not every year.
Loquat grows differently in tropical climates, typically blooming 2 to 3 times a year. Loquats usually mature 90 days after the bloom.


The loquat has a high sugar, acid and pectin content.  It is eaten as a fresh fruit and mixes well with other fruits in fresh fruit salads or fruit cups. The fruit is also commonly used to make jam, jelly and chutney, and is often served poached in light syrup. Firm, slightly immature fruits are best for making pies or tarts, while the fruits are the sweetest when soft and orange.
The fruit is sometimes canned or processed into confections. The waste ratio is 30 percent or more, due to the seed size.
The loquat can also be used in juices or smoothies. In South American countries such as Ecuador, the loquat can be used for batidos, where they are mixed with milk, ice, or other fruits.
An American writer calls the loquat's flavor "floral" with hints of apricot and a peach, with the fruit's natural sweetness contributing to its popularity.
Loquats are used commonly as a natural sweetener for many different types of food, and are used to make marmalade and jelly in various locales. Many people use loquats to create sauces and other juices since the acidity goes well with the sweetness, another reason why they are popular for making pies and other pastries.
Loquats are often eaten as a fresh fruit, but need to have the seeds removed in order to be ready to eat.  The seeds not only takes up a great deal of space relative to the size of the fruit (cf. avocado) but also are slightly poisonous in large quantities.  The fruit is often peeled, but the peel is edible and not overly thick.
Some other uses for loquat include making alcohol, animal feed, and medicine to counter vomiting and thirst. The loquat's trees and flowers also are used in different forms. The loquat's wood is used as an alternative to pear wood and works well to make rulers/other writing instruments. The loquat's flowers are used to make perfume in places like Europe, although its yield is considered low. Powdered loquat leaves are also used to treat diarrhea, depression, and even help to counteract alcoholic intoxication.


Loquats can also be used to make light wine. They are fermented into a fruit wine, sometimes using just crystal sugar and white liquor.
The liquor nespolino is made from the seeds,  reminiscent of nocino and amaretto, both prepared from nuts and apricot kernels. Both the loquat seeds and the apricot kernels contain cyanogenic glycosides, but the drinks are prepared from varieties that contain only small quantities (such as Mogi and Tanaka), so there is no risk of cyanide poisoning.


The loquat is low in sodium and high in vitamin A, vitamin B6, dietary fiber, potassium, and manganese.
Like most related plants, the seeds (pips) and young leaves of the plant are slightly poisonous, containing small amounts of cyanogenic glycosides (including amygdalin) which release cyanide when digested, though the low concentration and bitter flavour normally prevent enough being eaten to cause harm.


In China, the loquat is known as the 'pipa' (枇杷) and because of its golden colour, represents gold and wealth. It is often one in a bowl or composite of fruits and vegetables (such as spring onions, artemisia leaves, pomegranates, kumquats, etc.) to represent auspicious wishes or the 'Five Prosperities' or wurui (五瑞).


Eriocephalus africanus is a bushy shrublet indigenous to South Africa. It has a wide distribution in the Western and Eastern Cape, and in Namaqualand. The plant has several common names in various languages. It is known as the Kapokbossie or Wild Rosemary (Afrikaans "wilde roosmaryn") referring to its fancied resemblance to rosemary. The superficial resemblance is in the foliage, which, though softer and not glossy, grows in a habit similar to that of the common Mediterranean rosemary, although the two species are not related.
Eriocephalus africanus is fragrant, with lightly felted foliage that gives the plant a matt silvery appearance. The inflorescences are small brown and pale yellow heads borne in corymbs; each head bears a few bisexual ray florets with abortive ovaries and snowy white petals that practically cover a bush in flower. The ray florets surround usually some four to eight female florets in the centre.
Ecologically the plant is important to many insects as a source of nectar and pollen, and as a minor browse to flocks and antelope. Essential oil derived from E. africanus is used as an ingredient in medicinal and perfume products. The plant has been used in traditional medicine and in cooking.


Essential oil extracts of E. africanus are prepared by steam distillation, and contain the following primary aroma components:
linalyl acetate 18.0%
1,8-cineole 4.3%
para-cymene 3.5%
camphene 2.8%
linalool 2.5%
camphor 2.4%
sabinene 2.3%
α-copaene 1.8%
limonene 1.1%
geranyl acetate 0.9%
terpinen-4-ol 0.9%
α-pinene 0.8%
valencene 0.8%
β-pinene 0.7%
α-terpineol 0.6%
β-caryophyllene 0.5%
myrcene 0.2%


Eriodictyon californicum is a species of plant within the family Boraginaceae. It is also known as yerba santa (sacred herb), mountain balm, bear's weed, gum bush, gum plant, and consumptive weed. Less common names include Herbe des Montagnes, Herbe à Ourse, Herbe Sacrée, Herbe Sainte, Hierba Santa, Holy Herb, and Tarweed.


It is native to California and Oregon, where it grows in several types of habitats, including chaparral and coast redwood forests.


Eriodictyon californicum is an evergreen aromatic shrub with woody rhizomes, typically found in clonal stands growing to a height of 3 to 4 feet (1+ meter). The dark green, leathery leaves are narrow, oblong to lanceolate, and up to 15 centimeters in length. Foliage and twigs are covered with shiny resin and are often dusted with black fungi, Heterosporium californicum.
It is similar to its Southern California sibling E. crassofolium.
The shrub is known to be an occasional source of nutrition for wildlife and livestock.  Their bitterness makes them unpalatable to most animals, although it does have multiple insect herbivores, including butterflies. The inflorescence is a cluster of bell-shaped white to purplish flowers, each between one and two centimeters in length.


When first described, it was placed in genus Wigandia, so its basionym is Wigandia californica.


Eriodictyol is one of the 4 flavanones identified in this plant by the Symrise Corporation as having taste-modifying properties, the other three being: homoeriodictyol, its sodium salt and sterubin. These compounds have potential uses in food and pharmaceutical industry to mask bitter taste.


This species of shrub is used for revegetating damaged or disturbed lands, such as overgrazed rangeland. It is strongly fire-adapted, sprouting from rhizomes after wildfire and developing a waxy film of flammable resins on its foliage.


Eriodictyon crassifolium, or thickleaf yerba santa, is a shrub in the borage family. "Crassifolium" means "thick leaf." The plant has thick, wooly leaves. It is native to California and Baja California.


Eriodictyon crassifolium is a hairy to woolly shrub growing one to three meters tall. The leaves are up to 17 centimeters long by 6 wide, dark green, and sometimes toothed along the edges. The underside of the leaf is hairy, while the top may be less hairy and more hard and leathery. The inflorescence is a cluster of bell-shaped lavender flowers. The stems are woody and branching.
The plant can be easily confused with E. trichocalyx and E. californicum (two other species of yerba santa) or, more consequentially, with the toxic E. parryi (poodle-dog bush). E. parryi grows in the same environments, but normally in disturbed landscapes such as burn areas. E. parryi is an extremely potent skin irritant. Information about distinguishing the species is given in the article on E. parryi.


It is native to California and Baja California, where it grows in several types of habitat, including chaparral, in the coastal and inland hills and mountains, mainly in the Southern California part of the state, south of the latitude of the Santa Barbara/San Luis Obispo county line and extending from the coast inland through the Coast Ranges and Transverse Ranges. In Baja California, it is found in the vicinity of La Misión, in the northern part of the state.
It grows mostly on dry slopes and in washes. It is commonly found along roadsides, and may also grow on mesas or in river bottoms. It can grow by crown sprouting in disturbed areas.
In the Transverse Ranges, it grows at elevations of up to 2500 m (8000 ft), although it is more common below 1800 m (6000 ft). Plants growing at the lower elevations may be up to 2 m tall and thickly vegetated.


It was traditionally used by the Chumash people to keep airways open for proper breathing.
The leaves can be chewed like gum or made into a bitter tea, although some people consider their odor unpleasant.
When gathering the leaves for human consumption, it is important to accurately distinguish the plant from the toxic E. parryi.


Eriodictyon trichocalyx is a species of flowering plant in the borage family known by the common name hairy yerba santa.


It is native to Southern California and Baja California, where it grows in several habitat types, including chaparral and grassland. It is similar to E. crassifolium and grows in some of the same areas.


Eriodictyon trichocalyx is a shrub growing erect up to about 2 meters tall, with lance-shaped to oval leaves up to 14 centimeters long. They are hairless and resinous to densely woolly. The inflorescence is a cluster of white to light purple bell-shaped flowers.  At higher elevations, the plant  tends to a much smaller stature and often appear more thin and ratty; rare, large plants at these elevations tend to be old and woody, and may have a large, tree-like trunk at their base and a great deal of dead wood and twigs.


The Cahuilla people of California used it to treat coughs, colds, sore throats, asthma, tuberculosis, and catarrh. It was also used as a liniment and a poultice. The Cahuilla also used it as a tea bath, where it relieved rheumatism, tired limbs, fevers, and sores.
The Chumash also used it as a liniment for the feet and chest.


Eriogonum cinereum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names coastal buckwheat and ashyleaf buckwheat.


This shrub is endemic to the coastline of Southern California, primarily within Los Angeles County and Ventura County.
It grows on beaches in coastal strand habitats and on bluffs and lower slopes of the Western Transverse Ranges, including the Santa Monica Mountains, in chaparral coastal sage scrub habitats below 400 metres (1,300 ft).


Eriogonum cinereum can reach from 2–4 feet (0.61–1.22 m) in height and width. It is light silvery gray in color due to the woolly hairs on its stems and foliage. The leaves are wavy-edged ovals one to three centimeters long.
The inflorescences stick out from the plant, each with one to several flower cluster heads of tiny tightly-packed frilly flowers which are usually light whitish-pink to brownish-pink in color, and quite hairy.


This is the foodplant for Euphilotes bernardino, the Bernardino dotted blue butterfly. Buckwheats (Eriogonum sp.) are very important for various butterflies and native wasps.


Eriogonum cinereum is cultivated as an ornamental plant, for planting in native plant, drought tolerant, and butterfly gardens and other wildlife gardens, and for larger designed natural landscaping and habitat restoration projects.


Eriogonum deflexum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names flatcrown buckwheat,  flat-top buckwheat, and skeletonweed. This plant is native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, where it is common and grows in a variety of habitats, especially desert scrub. It is somewhat weedy where it is most abundant. This is an annual which varies in size from small patches on the ground to tangled bushes approaching two meters in height; it may be dense or thin and spindly. This is a brown or greenish weedy-looking herb with a many-branched stem. The leaves are located at the base of the plant and are rounded and woolly and one to four centimeters long. Small clusters of flowers appear at intervals along the branches with each flower only one to three millimeters wide and white or pinkish in color.


Eriogonum fasciculatum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names California buckwheat and flat-topped buckwheat. Characterized by small, white and pink flower clusters that give off a cottony effect, this species grows variably from a patchy mat to a wide shrub, with the flowers turning a rusty color after blooming. This plant is of great benefit across its various habitats, providing an important food resource for a diversity of insect and mammal species. It also provides numerous ecosystem services for humans, including erosion control, post-fire mitigation, increases in crop yields when planted in hedgerows, and high habitat restoration value.


Eriogonum fasciculatum is variable in appearance, forming a patchy, compact mat or shrub approaching 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) in height and 2.5 m (8.2 ft) across. The stems are up to 25 centimetres (9.8 in) long, and may be wooly, hairy, or 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 the edges of the leaves (margins) are rolled under.
The inflorescence is up to 20 cm (7.9 in) tall by 15 cm (5.9 in) wide, with 3 to 8 involucres that are up to 4 mm (0.16 in) tall and 3 mm (0.12 in) wide. The flowers appear in dense, frilly clusters, with each individual flower colored pink and white and only a few millimeters across. The fruit is an achene, up to 2.5 mm (0.098 in) large and lacking any hair. After the fruits are set, the dry calyx provides buoyancy to the detached achenes, assisting in their dispersal by wind and water.


There are a number of distinct varieties, they include:
Eriogonum fasciculatum var. emphereium —endemic to western El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve in Baja California Sur.
Eriogonum fasciculatum var. fasciculatum — Coastal California buckwheat, autonymous variety.
Eriogonum fasciculatum var. flavoviride — eastern Mojave buckwheat, Sonoran Desert California buckwheat, bright green California buckwheat.
Eriogonum fasciculatum var. foliolosum — red topped buckwheat.
Eriogonum fasciculatum var. polifolium  — Mojave Desert California buckwheat, mountain buckwheat, gray-leaved California buckwheat.


This common shrub is native to the Southwestern United States, California, and northwestern Mexico. It is found from the coasts and deserts of California and Baja California; eastwards through the Southern California Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, and Peninsular Ranges; and further east into the Sonoran and Mojave deserts and the Great Basin. It is also distributed into Baja California Sur south to the Tres Virgenes and Vizcaino peninsula.
It grows on slopes and dry washes in diverse habitats, including chaparral, coastal sage scrub, grasslands, sagebrush scrub, pinyon-juniper woodland, and creosote bush scrub.


California buckwheat has been used as a food crop and medicinal plant by various Native American tribes.
Some tribes would make tea from the leaves, stems, and roots; whilst other tribes used the seeds to be consumed raw or used in porridges and baked items.
The Tongva, who call the plant wilakal, gather the leaves before flowering to make into a strong thick tea and grind the dried roots to use for headaches and stomach problems.
This widespread species was used extensively as a traditional medicinal plant by Native Americans for a variety of ailments, including the treatment of headache, diarrhea, and wounds. The Zuni people use a poultice of powdered root and apply it to cuts and arrow or bullet wounds. A decoction of the root is taken after parturition to heal lacerations. This same decoction is also taken for hoarseness and colds involving the throat.


This species is the most important native source of honey in California, particularly attractive to numerous species of native bees and other pollinators, and is a good source of nectar over many months in dryer areas. It also attracts introduced honey bees (Apis mellifera).
California buckwheats are nectar food plants for several butterflies, notably the Bernardino dotted-blue (Euphilotes bernardino), lupine blue (Icaricia lupini), Mormon metalmark (Apodemia mormo), and Behr's metalmark (Apodemia virgulti). Probably the butterfly most commonly seen with the species is the nut-brown hairstreak (Satyrium saepium), which frequents plants in full flower.  It is a larval host for the Acmon blue, blue copper, Electra buckmoth, Gorgon copper, lupine blue, and western green hairstreak.


Eriogonum fasciculatum is cultivated as an ornamental plant, for planting in native plant, drought tolerant, and wildlife gardens, and for larger designed natural landscaping and habitat restoration projects. It is also used in hedgerows to increase the yield of crops, to mitigate post-fire areas, and for erosion control.


Eriogonum inflatum, the desert trumpet, is a perennial plant of the family Polygonaceae. The plant possesses very small yellow or pink flowers and an inflated stem just below branching segments.  Eriogonum: from the Greek erion, "wool", and gonu, "joint or knee", in reference to the hairy or woolly joints of some of the species of the genus, but not particularly inflatum. It is found in the Mojave Desert and other deserts.


The swelling of the stems was assumed to have been influenced by the presence of gall insects, most notably of the genus Odynerus. The female wasp produces a small hole on the inflated portion of the desert trumpet, packs the cavity with larvae and lays her eggs upon them, providing a food source, and a protected environment for the offspring. Irritation caused by this process was said to have enlarged the cavity over time. Recently, research performed by a world authority on the genus Eriogonum, Dr. J. L. Reveal of the University of Maryland, College Park, revealed the swollen stem of Eriogonum inflatum is due to high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the solid stem and seems to be related to gas regulation.
Some insects utilize the swollen stem as a larder, but the inflation is not caused by the larval feeding of gall insects.


It is known that some Native American tribes that once inhabited the surrounding areas of the Las Vegas Valley (most commonly Paiute) would remove the stalk of E. inflatum at the base, and then cut the inflated bulb in half, producing a makeshift pipe. A mixture of Indian tobacco and mistletoe would be smoked primarily for leisure purposes.
This plant makes a brief appearance in Star Trek: Voyager, in Season 3, episode 1, at around the 3 minute 47 second mark, when the character "Neelix" is shown to be looking at a picked specimen.


Eriogonum longifolium, the longleaf eriogonum or long-leaf wild buckwheat, is a dicot of the family Polygonaceae. In addition to populations of E. longifolium var. longifolium found in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma,  and Texas, there are varieties or subspecies that are geographically isolated and at various levels of endangerment. According to the University of Michigan Native American Ethnobotony database, Eriogonum longifolium has been used as a food by the Kiowa and as a medicinal by the Comanche.
Eriogonuum longifolium leaves are described as being lanceolate, oblanceolate or oblong and with tomentose coating; the plant develops flowering stems which are up to 17 dm (67 in) tall.


Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky: E. longifolium var. harperi (Harper's buckwheat or Harper's umbrella plant)
Florida: E. longifolium var. gnaphalifolium Gandog, (sometimes known as Eriogonum floridanum Small) - Scrub Buckwheat or Longleaf Wild Buckwheat
New Mexico: E. longifolium var. lindheimeri


Eriogonum nudum is a perennial shrub of the wild buckwheat genus which is known by the common name naked buckwheat or nude buckwheat.


The Eriogonum nudum plant is a tall, bare, leafless stem, bifurcating into more stems, each topped with rounded clusters of white or pale pink or yellow flowers growing up to six feet from a basal rosette at the ground, where the flat green leaves are located. An striking characteristic is that flower clusters typically occur at the branch as well as the branch tips.  The naked stem gives the plant its common name.


Naked buckwheat can be found scattered around the west coast of the United States. This species has one of the widest ecological distributions of all of the buckwheats. It can be found at wet coastal sea level locales and the coldest, driest elevations of the Sierra Nevada, as well as many areas in between.
The species is not uncommon, but some specific varieties are quite rare.


Nectar-feeding insects such as butterflies are attracted to buckwheat flowers. At least one butterfly subspecies (Apodemia mormo langei) uses naked buckwheat as its primary food source.
The complex of varieties and subspecies of naked buckwheat includes:
Eriogonum nudum var. auriculatum - eared naked buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. decurrens - Ben Lomond buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. deductum
Eriogonum nudum var. indictum - protruding buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. murinum - mouse buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. nudum
Eriogonum nudum var. oblongifolium - oblong-leaved buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. paralinum - Del Norte buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum ssp. pauciflorum - few-flowered naked buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. psychicola - Antioch Dunes buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. pubiflorum - hairy-flowered buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. regirivum - Kings River buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. scapigerum
Eriogonum nudum var. westonii - Weston's buckwheat
Eriogonum nudum var. gramineu
Eriogonum nudum ssp. saxicola


Eriogonum parvifolium is a species in the family Polygonaceae that occurs on dune formations in the coastal area of Central and Southern California.  This evergreen shrub grows to a height of 30 to 100 centimeters with a spread of approximately the same dimension.  This plant is an important host for a number of pollinating insects including certain endangered species.  E. parvifolium occurs both on bluffs along the Pacific Ocean coast as well as Coastal Strand dunes formations, but is restricted to altitudes below 700 meters.  In at least one instance within the Carbonera Creek watershed, it occurs farther inland in a Maritime Coast Range Ponderosa Pine forest.  This shrub is also known by the common names dune buckwheat, coast buckwheat, cliff buckwheat, or seacliff buckwheat.


The thick cauline leaves are five to thirty millimeters in size and may be lanceolate to rounded.  Alternatively leaves may be folded under, with the result of appearing more or less triangular; moreover they are smooth on the upper surfaces and woolly below.  Foliage is green with reddish tinge, and the flowers white to pinkish or yellowish-green.  The perianth measures 2.5 to 3.0 millimeters.  This plant's glabrous fruits are 2.5 to 3.0 millimeters across.


E. parvifolium grows in sandy soils with pH ranging from five to eight (e.g. tolerates mildly acidic to mildly alkaline soils).  In cultivation this species will actually tolerate clay soils.  While this shrub grows in part to full sun, it may tolerate shade in cultivation.  It is not subject to herbivory by deer, although many smaller fauna will consume its flowers, fruits and leaves.  This species thrives in  rainfall regimes of 39 to 78 centimeters per annum.
Dune buckwheat is the host plant to a large variety of insects, and thus there is intense competition among various insects.  Specifically it is a host plant to ten different Lepidoptera species, including the El Segundo blue butterfly and Smith's blue butterfly;  moreover, in the case of the El Segundo blue, it is the only host plant used by that species in all of its life stages.


Because of the host relationship to number of insect species, E. parvifolium has been the subject of numerous restoration programs including a significant and well researched program at Los Angeles International Airport, one of only three extant colonies of the endangered El Segundo blue.


Eriogonum umbellatum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common name sulphurflower buckwheat, or simply sulphur flower. It is native to western North America from California to Colorado to central Canada, where it is abundant and found in many habitats, including the sagebrush steppe and alpine areas. It is an extremely variable plant and hard to identify because individuals can look very different from one another. Also, there are many varieties. It may be a perennial herb blooming by summer with stems 10 centimeters tall and two to six clusters of flowers, with a whorl of leaves below the stems, or a sprawling shrub approaching two meters high and wide. The leaves are usually woolly and low on the plant, and the flowers come in many colors from white to bright yellow to purple. Native American groups utilized parts of this plant for a number of medicinal uses.
It is a popular larval host, feeding the bramble hairstreak, desert green hairstreak, lupine blue, Mormon metalmark, Rocky Mountain dotted blue, Sheridan's hairstreak, Sonoran metalmark, and western green hairstreak. Additionally, goats and domestic sheep feed on the plant.
Varieties of this species include, but are not limited to:
E. u. var. argus - often nearly hairless leaves and bright yellow flowers; limited to the Klamath Mountains
E. u. var. dichrocephalum - found throughout much of the western United States
E. u. var. furcosum - a low shrub native to the Sierra Nevada
E. u. var. glaberrimum - (green buckwheat) - a nearly hairless, white-flowered species
E. u. var. humistratum - (Mt. Eddy buckwheat) - a rare northern California endemic
E. u. var. juniporinum - (juniper buckwheat) - an uncommon plant of eastern California and western Nevada
E. u. var. subalpinum - (sulfur buckwheat) - similar to Eriogonum eriogonum but has wider and more spoon-shaped leaves
E. u. var. torreyanum - (Donner Pass buckwheat) - known from fewer than 10 occurrences near the Donner Pass
E. u. var. versicolor - bears pinkish-brown flowers with bright stripes


Eriogonum wrightii is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names bastardsage and Wright's buckwheat. It is native to the Southwestern United States, California, and northwest Mexico, where it grows in many plant communities, such as chaparral, in rocky habitats from mountains to deserts.


It is quite variable in appearance; it may be a small perennial herb 10 centimeters tall or a bushy shrub over a meter wide. There are several varieties as well. In general it has basal leaves as well as a few leaves along the stem, which are usually narrow and woolly. The inflorescence has long, straight branches which may be hairless to woolly and have flower clusters and sometimes small leaves at the nodes. The flowers are usually white to light pink.


Eriogonum wrightii var. brevifolium Reveal (San Borja buckwheat) – An uncommon endemic from the Sierra de San Borja in Baja California to the Tres Vírgenes in Baja California Sur.
Eriogonum wrightii var. dentatum (S. Stokes) Reveal (La Mision buckwheat) – A rare endemic occurring along the mesas and bluffs above the Pacific coast between La Mision and Ensenada, Baja California.
Eriogonum wrightii var. linearifolium Reveal (Linear-leaf island buckwheat) – A rare endemic existing on Angel de la Guarda Island in the Gulf of California.
Eriogonum wrightii var. membranaceum S. Stokes ex Jeps. (Foothill buckwheat, Ring-stem buckwheat) – In Mexico, this variety occurs in the upper foothills and mountains of the Sierra de Juarez and the Sierra de San Pedro Martir and disjunctly to the south in the Sierra La Asamblea. In the United States, it is found in California, occurring primarily in the Peninsular Ranges.
Eriogonum wrightii var. nodosum (Small) Reveal (Knot-stem buckwheat, bastardsage) – A rare variety occurring in the more arid portions of the southwest. In Mexico, it occurs in Sonora, and the Baja California Peninsula, on the Sierra de Juarez and Sierra de San Pedro Martir south to the Sierra de San Borja in Baja California and on the Cerro Azufre in Baja California Sur. In the United States, it is found in Arizona and California.
Eriogonum wrightii var. olanchense (J.T. Howell) Reveal
Eriogonum wrightii var. oresbium Reveal (San Pedro Martir buckwheat) – An uncommon variety endemic to the Sierra de Juarez and the Sierra de San Pedro Martir in Baja California, Mexico. Differs from all other forms of the species with its broadly elliptic to nearly oval leaf blades.
Eriogonum wrightii var. subscaposum S. Watson
Eriogonum wrightii var. taxifolium (Greene) Parish (Yew-leaf buckwheat) – A rare variety endemic to Cedros Island, but also on the Punta Baja near El Rosario in Baja California.
Eriogonum wrightii var. trachygonum (Torr. ex Benth.) Jeps.


Eriophorum angustifolium, commonly known as common cottongrass or common cottonsedge, is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. Native to North America, North Asia, and Northern Europe, it grows on peat or acidic soils, in open wetland, heath or moorland. It begins to flower in April or May and, after fertilisation in early summer, the small, unremarkable brown and green flowers develop distinctive white bristle-like seed-heads that resemble tufts of cotton; combined with its ecological suitability to bog, these characteristics give rise to the plant's alternative name, bog cotton.
Eriophorum angustifolium is a hardy, herbaceous, rhizomatous, perennial sedge, able to endure in a variety of environments in the temperate, subarctic and arctic regions of Earth. Unlike Gossypium, the genus from which cotton is derived, the bristles which grow on E. angustifolium are unsuited to textile manufacturing. Nevertheless, in Northern Europe, they were used as a substitute in the production of paper, pillows, candle-wicks, and wound-dressings. The indigenous peoples of North America use the plant in cooking and in the treatment of digestive problems. Following a vote in 2002, Plantlife International designated E. angustifolium the County Flower of Greater Manchester, as part of its British County Flowers campaign.


In the wild, Eriophorum angustifolium is a creeping rhizomatous perennial sedge, with an abundance of unbranched, translucent pink roots. Fully grown, it has a tall, erect stem shaped like a narrow cylinder or triangular prism; it is smooth in texture and green in colour. Reports of the plant's height vary; estimates include up to 60 cm (24 in), 15–75 cm (5.9–29.5 in), and up to 100 cm (39 in). E. angustifolium has "stiff grass-like foliage" consisting of long, narrow solidly dark green leaves, which have a single central groove, and narrow from their 2–6-millimetre (0.08–0.24 in) wide base to a triangular tip. Up to seven green and brown aerial peduncles and chaffs, roughly 4–10 millimetres (0.16–0.39 in) in size, protrude from umbels at the top of the stem from which achenes are produced after fertilisation, each with a single pappus; these combine to form a distinctive white perianth around 5 centimetres (2.0 in) long.
Eriophorum angustifolium is described as "a rather dull plant" in winter and spring, but "simply breathtaking" in summer and autumn, when 1–7 conspicuous inflorescences – composed of hundreds of white pappi comparable to cotton, hair, tassels, and/or bristles – stand out against naturally drab surroundings.
Eriophorum angustifolium differs from other species within the genus Eriophorum in its habitat and morphology. Its multiple flower heads and growth from rhizomes distinguish it from E. vaginatum, which has a single flower head and grows from dense tussocks. Although E. latifolium has 2–12 flower heads, it has laxly caespitose (tufted) growth, and its pappi are forked. The smooth peduncles and preference for acidic soil pH distinguishes E. angustifolium from E. gracile, which grows in swamp with a neutral pH and has scabrid (rough) peduncles.
Habitus of Eriophorum angustifolium


Eriophorum angustifolium is native to the Northern Hemisphere, and distributed across Eurasia, North America and the British Isles, where there is open bog, heath, wetland and moorland, with standing water and calcareous peat or acidic soil. It can survive in the Subarctic and Arctic, and is found in Alaska, Finland and Greenland as far north as 83° N. The British botanist William Turner Thiselton-Dyer recorded E. angustifolium in the South African Republic in 1898.
In North America, Eriophorum angustifolium is found in the north from Alaska through Manitoba and the Canadian Prairies to Newfoundland and Labrador, down the Pacific Northwest and the state of Washington, across the Midwestern United States through Michigan and Iowa, down the Eastern Seaboard as far south-east as New York and New Jersey, and reaching as far south-west as New Mexico. In Eurasia, E. angustifolium is distributed throughout the Caucasus, European Russia and North Asia, including Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula, and south-east to Manchuria and Korea. It grows throughout continental Europe, with the exception of those parts within the Mediterranean Basin, growing in Scandinavia in the north, and as far south as the Norte Region of Portugal and the Pierian Mountains of Greece.
Eriophorum angustifolium is the most common of the four native species of Eriophorum in the British Isles, and has been recorded as having existed in all vice-counties, thriving particularly well in Ireland and northern and western regions of Great Britain, but less so in southern and eastern areas. In the mires of Northern Ireland and the South Pennines, it considered a ruderal, pioneer and keystone species, because it can quickly colonise and repair damaged or eroded peat, encourage the re-vegetation of its surroundings, and retain sediment and its landscape to serve as a carbon sink. In central and southern counties of England, the species is rare or absent, and was "completely destroyed" in Cambridgeshire, The Broads, The Fens and other parts of the East of England by human activities such as land reclamation. Within the British Isles, E. angustifolium thrives at a range of altitudes from sea-level fens and lowland meadows, to exposed upland moors when provided with a habitat of acid bog or waterlogged heath. It has an altitudinal limit of 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) above sea level, reaching 854 metres (2,802 ft) in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland, and 1,060 metres (3,480 ft) in the Scottish Highlands.


Eriophorum angustifolium is a hardy, herbaceous, rhizomatous, perennial plant, meaning that it is resilient to cold and freezing climatic conditions, dies back at the end of its growing season, has creeping rootstalks, and lives for over two years. It grows vigorously from seed over a period of 2–5 years, and thrives particularly well in freshly disturbed, cut or eroded peat. E. angustifolium is protogynous.
Sexual reproduction in Eriophorum angustifolium begins with flowering in spring or early summer (in or around May), when groups of 3–5 brown flowers are produced. Fertilisation usually takes place in May or June, via anemophily (wind-pollination), and the white bristle-like perianth, composed of achenes with pappi (seeds with hairs) then grows outwards to appear like short tufts of cotton thread. These pappi endure well into summer, lasting from around June to September. Like the pappus of Taraxacum (dandelions), this aids in wind-dispersal, and also serves as thermal insulation, conserving the temperature of the plant's reproductive organs by trapping solar radiation.
It is a known host to the fungal species Myriosclerotinia ciborium, Hysteronaevia advena, Lachnum imbecille and Lophodermium caricinum.


Eriophorum angustifolium has a NatureServe conservation status of G5, meaning that the species is considered to be ecologically secure by NatureServe, lacking any threats to its global abundance.


Eriophorum angustifolium seeds and stems are edible and are used in traditional Native American cuisine by Alaska Natives, Inuit and Inupiat people. The leaves and roots of E. angustifolium are also edible and, because of their astringent properties, used by the Yupik peoples for medicinal purposes, through a process of decoction, infusion or poultice, to treat ailments of the human gastrointestinal tract, and in the Old World for the treatment of diarrhoea. In abundance, E. angustifolium can grow with enough density to disguise wetland and bog. Consequently, it may be used as a natural indicator of areas which are hazardous and to avoid travelling through. Attempts to make a cotton-like thread from the hairs of the plant's seed-heads have been thwarted by its brittleness, but it has been used in the production of paper and candle wicks in Germany, and was used as a feather substitute in pillow stuffing in Sweden and Sussex, England. In Scotland, during World War I, it was used to dress wounds.
In 2002, the County Flowers campaign of Plantlife International, which asked members of the public to nominate and vote for a wildflower emblem for each of the counties and metropolitan areas of the United Kingdom, resulted in Eriophorum angustifolium being announced as the County Flower of Greater Manchester.


The species was named Eriophorum angustifolium in 1782 by the German botanist Gerhard August Honckeny. The German botanist Albrecht Wilhelm Roth published this name in 1788, referring to Honckeny's work, and is sometimes erroneously considered the author of the species name. The genus name Eriophorum consists of two Ancient Greek roots – εριων (erion, "wool") and -φόρος (-phoros, "-bearing") – referring to the fibrous seed-heads of the genus, which resemble tufts of thread. The specific epithet angustifolium is composed of the Latin words angustus ("narrow") and folium ("leaf"). The Linnaean name Eriophorum polystachion is a nomen rejiciendum, being based on a mixed batch of specimens. Scirpus angustifolius is a later combination published by the Japanese botanist Tetsuo Koyama in 1958, but this generic assignment is not widely accepted.
Two subspecies are recognised within E. angustifolium. The autonymous subspecies, E. angustifolium subsp. angustifolium, is found in more southerly sites, while E. angustifolium subsp. triste has an overlapping distribution centred further north. The two also differ in height and the roughness of the peduncles, with E. a. subsp. angustifolium being up to 100 cm (39 in) tall and having smooth-surfaced peduncles, while E. a. subsp. triste has rough peduncles and only reaches 30 cm (12 in) tall.
In English, E. angustifolium is known by a variety of common names (with various spellings), including common cottongrass, common cotton-grass, common cottonsedge, tassel cotton grass, many-headed cotton-grass, thin-scale cotton-grass, tall cotton-grass, downy ling and bog cotton.


Although "difficult to grow under cultivation", The Royal Horticultural Society states Eriophorum angustifolium can be cultivated as a low-maintenance wildflower, suitable for meadows, ponds margins or bog gardens. This may be done in sheltered or exposed terrain, but best accomplished with full sun at a south- or west-facing aspect, in water up to 5 centimetres (2.0 in) deep. Poorly-drained peat, sand, clay or loam with an acidic soil pH is required. Division in spring is the recommended form of propagation for the species, and regular deadheading is the recommended method of pruning. Narthecium ossifragum and Myrica gale are suitable for companion planting with E. angustifolium. Eriophorum angustifolium is "generally pest free". As a seedling and young plant it is eaten by sheep and cattle, and a variety of goose species. It is tolerant to chalybeate (iron-enriched) water, but may succumb to powdery mildews.


Eriophorum vaginatum, the hare's-tail cottongrass, tussock cottongrass, or sheathed cottonsedge, is a species of perennial herbaceous flowering plant in the sedge family Cyperaceae. It is native to bogs and other acidic wetlands throughout the Holarctic Kingdom. It is a 30–60 cm high tussock-forming plant with solitary spikes.


Eriophorum vaginatum is a 30– to 60-cm-high tussock-forming plant with extremely narrow, almost hair-like leaves. On the flowering stems there is a single, inflated leaf-sheath, without a lamina, hence the species epithet ("sheath" is "vagina" in latin). The inflorescence is a dense, tufted, solitary spike. Fruiting stems elongate considerably, reaching well above the leaves.


Eriophorum vaginatum occurs throughout much of the boreal and arctic zones of Eurasia and North America. It prefers acidic, moist to wet, peaty soil and may be dominant in bogs, poor fens and the heathlands of Western Europe. It is also common on the tundra.
Common in Scotland, it is sometimes referred to as draw-ling or drawmoss.


Eriophyllum lanatum, with the common names common woolly sunflower, Oregon sunshine and golden yarrow, is a common, widespread, North American plant in the family Asteraceae.


Eriophyllum lanatum is a perennial herb growing from 30 to 60 centimetres (12 to 24 inches) in height, in well-branched clumps. Both the stems and leaves may be covered with a woolly gray hair, but some plants lack this. The leaves are 2.5–7.5 cm (1–3 in) long, linear on the upper stems, and slender and pinnately lobed on the lower stems. The hairs conserve water by reflecting heat and reducing air movement across the leaf's surface.
The flowers are yellow and composite, looking much like true sunflowers, and sometimes grow to about 5 cm (2 in) wide. Both the (8–12) ray and disk flowers are yellow, with one flower head on each flowering stalk. The flower heads have 6–14 rays, which are darker towards the base, and several disk flowers. They bloom from May to August. The seeds have scales at the tip.


The Lewis and Clark Expedition reportedly saw this plant growing above their camp on the Clearwater River (near present-day Kamiah, Idaho), and collected two specimens on 6 June 1806. Botanist Frederick Traugott Pursh studied the plants collected on the expedition; his first classification and naming of the species, as Actinella lanata, was published in 1813.
The common name "woolly sunflower" is often used to describe any member of the genus Eriophyllum.


Varieties include:
Eriophyllum lanatum var. achillioides (DC.) Jeps. — California, Nevada, Oregon.
Eriophyllum lanatum var. arachnoideum (Fisch. & Avé-Lall.) Jeps. — Spiderweb sunflower; endemic to the California Coast Ranges from Del Norte County to Monterey County in California.
Eriophyllum lanatum var. croceum (Greene) Jeps. — Sierra woolly sunflower; endemic to the Sierra Nevada in California.
Eriophyllum lanatum var. grandiflorum (A.Gray) Jeps. — Large flowered woolly sunflower; northern California, Oregon.
Eriophyllum lanatum var. hallii  Constance — Fort Tejon woolly sunflower,  Hall's woolly sunflower; endemic to the Tehachapi Mountains in Kern County, and Sierra Madre Mountains in Santa Barbara County, in southern California.
Eriophyllum lanatum var. integrifolium (Hook.) Smiley — Oregon sunshine; California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.
Eriophyllum lanatum var. lanatum — Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington.
Eriophyllum lanatum var. lanceolatum (Howell) Jeps. — endemic to the Klamath Mountains, in NW California and SW Oregon.
Eriophyllum lanatum var. leucophyllum (DC.) W.R.Carter — British Columbia, Oregon, Washington.
Eriophyllum lanatum var. obovatum (Greene) H.M.Hall — Southern Sierra woolly sunflower; endemic to the western Sierra Nevada and the San Bernardino Mountains in California.


Eriophyllum lanatum is native to western North America. It is most common across California, also growing north through Oregon into British Columbia and east through Idaho into Wyoming, and through Nevada into Utah. This species has only been collected from Mexico once, on Guadalupe Island, and it is most likely extirpated there.
It can be found (for instance in California) in chaparral, oak woodland, mixed evergreen forest, and yellow pine forest and other conifer forests, grassland, and sagebrush scrub habitats. It commonly grows in dry, open places below 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) in elevation. It prefers full sun and well-drained soil, but it also grows on rocky slopes and bluffs.


Eriophyllum staechadifolium is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae which is known by the common name seaside woolly sunflower. It is native to the coastline of Oregon and California including the Channel Islands. This is a plant of the beaches, dunes, and coastal scrub.
Eriophyllum staechadifolium is variable in size, its height depending in part on its exposure to harsh coastal wind and saline spray. It may reach anywhere from 30 centimeters to 150 centimeters (1–5 feet) tall, and may be small and clumpy or quite sprawling. The leaves are up to seven centimeters (2.8 inches) long and are sometimes lobed. Each inflorescence holds several tightly packed flower heads in shades of golden yellow with centers full of 30-40 disc florets and usually a fringe of 6-6 small ray florets each a few millimeters long.


Eriophyllum wallacei is a North American flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names woolly daisy and woolly easterbonnets. It grows in the southwestern United States (Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California, with an isolated population in Wyoming) and northwestern Mexico (northern Baja California). It may grow in clumps or on short erect stems in sand, rocks, and gravel.
It is a small, squat annual herb rarely more than 15 centimetres (6 inches) tall. The plant is covered in masses of white cotton-candy-like wool and has small oval leaves up to 2 cm (1 in) long. Between March and June it produces one flower head per stem, about 6 millimetres (1⁄4 in) wide and each with 5–10 yellow or cream-colored ray florets. The rays are about 3 mm (1⁄8 in) long and sometimes have red veins, surrounding 20–30 yellow disc florets. The seed is black and narrow.
In drier conditions, the plant tends to grow a single stem to ensure its reproduction via seed. With more moisture, it branches from the base into multiple stalks.


Eristalinus aeneus  ( Scopoli, 1763 ) , the Common Lagoon Fly , is a  fairly common species of syrphid fly observed throughout the United States and Europe. Hoverflies can remain nearly motionless in flight. The  adults are also  known as flower flies for they are commonly found on flowers from which they get both enegy-giving nectar and protein rich pollen. The larvae occurs along shorelines in rock pools containing large amounts of decaying seaweed.


External images
For terms see Morphology of Diptera

The wing length is 6 ·5- 9·25 mm. The eyes are patterned with obvious black spots. Tergites 2 and 3 are completely shiny. The thoracic dorsum has faint greyish stripes (in Southern Europe it has five strong grey stripes). In males the eyes meet on the frons. In females the eyes are bare on the lower half. The hind tibiae have a black ring after middle, and all tarsi with segments 2-4 darkened.

The male genitalia are figured by Pérez-Bañón et al (2003) . The larva is figured by Hartley (1961)


The distribution of this species is cosmopolitan.


The habitat for this species is freshwater: coastal lagoons, ponds, slow-moving rivers, streams and irrigation ditches. The species is anthropophilic in southern Europe; towards the northern edge of its range there it is confined to coastal sites.
The species flies very fast and low over ground vegetation, and feeds on yellow composites and white umbellifers: Aster, Berteroa incana, Cistus, Origanum, Salix repens, Taraxacum.
The flight period is  April to October. Overwinters as an adult.
In the north, the larvae of E. aeneus occur in freshwater seepages and brackish rock pools on the sea coast, but elsewhere they occur in a variety of freshwater habitats, including in association with animal dung and in sewage farms.


Eristalinus taeniops is a species of hoverfly, also known as the band-eyed drone fly.


This species is present in part of Europe (Albania, Balearic Islands, Bulgaria, the Canary Islands, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Spain), in North Africa, in the Near East (Turkey, Lebanon, Israel), in the Caucasus, in the Eastern parts of Afrotropical realm to South Africa, in the Oriental realm (Nepal, Northern India), in Northern Pakistan and in Iran. It has been introduced to parts of North America (California and Florida). Recently discovered on Rio de Janeiro, Poços de Caldas, Brazil and Nova Maringá, Brazil.


These hoverflies can be found in Holly oak forests, in forest clearings, maquis, rivers, streams, and in coastal marshes.


Eristalinus taeniops can reach a length of 11–14 millimetres (0.43–0.55 in). These hoverflies exhibit a bee-like yellow-black drawing (Batesian mimicry) and are often mistaken for wasps or bees. The thorax has a metallic yellow-brown color and it is densely yellow hairy. Also the scutellum are yellow-brown colored. The abdomen is reddish-yellow, with transversal black bands. The compound eyes have five distinct, vertical, dark stripes. The wings are transparent, usually yellowish-brown at the base, while the halteres are brightly pale yellow colored.


Adults of these hoverflies can be found from April to October with a peak from May to August. They feed on nectar of yellow and white flowers such as Erica, Daphne, Senecio and Rosaceae species. The larvae live as rat-tailed maggots, mainly in the mud, in animal carcasses and in water contaminated by pig manure.


Eristalis dimidiata, the black-shouldered drone fly, is a species of hoverfly native to much of Canada and the eastern and northern United States. It flies year-round in southern areas and from late March to mid-November further north. It is one of the earliest hoverflies to fly in the spring, and as such likely overwinters as an adult. It lives primarily in forests.
Hoverflies get their names from the ability to remain nearly motionless while in flight The  adults, also  known as flower flies for they are commonly found around and on flowers from which they get both enegy-giving nectar and protein rich pollen. The larvae are aquatic  filter-feeders of the  rat-tailed type.


Eristalis flavipes, the orange-legged drone fly, is a species of hoverfly native to North America. It flies from early April to mid-October, and occur in a wide variety of habitats, particularly wetlands. Hoverflies get their names from the ability to remain nearly motionless while in flight The  adults, also  known as flower flies for they are commonly found around and on flowers from which they get both enegy-giving nectar and protein rich pollen. . The larvae are aquatic  filter-feeders of the  rat-tailed type.


Eristalis flavipes strongly like bumblebees

For terms see Morphology of Diptera.
Length  13 to 17 mm.
Head
The face, cheeks (gena) and facial stripe are shining black with short yellow pile. The antennae are dark brown and plumose basally. The eyes are broadly contiguous in the male, with eye pile confined mostly to a vertical stripe.
Thorax
The mesonotum, pleurae, and scutellum, with very abundant, long, bright yellow pile over shining black except the center of the nearly hairless  mesonotum. The scutellum is wholly light yellow.
Abdomen
The abdomen is a deep shining black with the second segment dark red and covered with long black hairs with some yellow hairs intermixed.
Wings
The wings are hyaline with luteous veins. The female has a large brown spot at the  central part of wing. The wing veination: includes a sinuous r₄₊₅ vein, a closed cell r1. The  anterior cross- vein (r-m)  is oblique and near the middle of discal cell (dm).
Legs
The legs are deep black, with black pile. Joints are  reddish the  anterior tarsi are brown, the middle and posterior tarsi are light reddish-yellow. The hind femora are somewhat elongate. The hind tibiae are  bent.


Eristalis pertinax is a European hoverfly. Like Eristalis tenax, the larva of E. pertinax is a rat-tailed maggot and lives in drainage ditches, pools around manure piles, sewage, and similar places containing water with high organic load and low oxygen concentration.


External images
For terms see Morphology of Diptera

Wing length 8.25–12.75 mm. Antennomere 3 brown-black. Arista plumose to tip. Tarsi 1 and 2 entirely yellow. Wing with diffusely bordered darkened median band and pterostigma 4 times as
long as wide. Dimorphic (males with triangular abdomen, females with squarish abdomen).
The male genitalia are figured by Hippa et al. (2001). The larva is figured by Hartley (1961).


Palaearctic Fennoscandia South to Iberia and the Mediterranean basin. Ireland East through Europe into Turkey and European Russia East to the Urals.


The habitat is wetland, forest, alluvial forest, fen, farmland, suburban gardens and parks. The flight period is February to November.


Eristalis tenax is a large, stocky bee mimic. The eyes are marbled in black. Males have hovering displays. The average wing length is 9.75–13 mm and their average wingspan is 15 mm.
The exact appearance of the drone fly can vary considerably. The abdomen can vary in color from dark brown to orange. Pigmentation has an important role in the control of body temperature; the black areas down the center of the drone-flies abdomen may absorb solar radiation and so warm the dorsal blood vessel, which is right underneath.


Males of E. tenax can be strongly territorial in the summer, guarding territories such as flowerbeds or bushes to ensure a chance to mate. The males hover motionless in the air and dart after intruders to chase them out of the territory.
Research suggest that male drone flies live in the same territory their entire lives. They mate, feed, and groom in this area, and they defend the area against other insects. When male E. tenax of the spring and summer generations stop dispersing, they settle within home ranges which provide them with locations suitable for sheltering, resting, basking, grooming, feeding and mating. When away from its "home territory", a male drone fly rarely responds to other insects. But when it is on its mating site, the male is very territorial, attacking alien species such as bees, wasps, and butterflies. Being on territorial guard duty is very demanding, so much so that the males take rest periods outside of their territory. When weather conditions do not allow them to leave their territory, they become increasingly aggressive. Males that live in horizontal territories such as flowerbeds are more likely to notice intruders, and so are more likely to attack intruders than males who live in more vertically-aligned territories such as shrubs.


The egg is white. It is covered in a sticky substance, and it has an elongated shape.


The larva is aquatic. It has a cylindrical shape with patches of horizontal folds that divide the body into segments. At each of the segments, two rows of flexible hairs are visible. All drone-fly larvae have a siphon on their posterior end that acts as a respiratory mechanism and looks like a tail, hence the common name, rat-tail maggot. The siphon can be several times the length of the larva's body.


The adult fly is about an inch in length. Although it superficially resembles a honey bee, it can be easily differentiated from a honey bees because it does not have a constricted "waist" between the thorax and the abdomen. Also, being a fly, it only has two wings whereas bees have four wings. There are short brownish-yellow hairs on the thorax and the first segment of the abdomen. The adult drone-fly's body is dark brown to black in color, with yellow-orange marks on the side of the second section of the abdomen. There is a yellow-orange band that crosses the 3rd abdominal segment.


There is sexual dimorphism in drone flies: males tend to have lighter patterns than females. Males can also be easily distinguished from females by their large eyes which almost touch each other, whereas females have smaller eyes that are spaced further apart.


The larva of E. tenax is a rat-tailed maggot, which is saprophagous. It lives in drainage ditches, pools around manure piles, sewage, and similar places where water is polluted with organic matter. The larvae likely feed on the abundant bacteria living in these places.
When fully grown, the larvae creep out into drier habitats, and seek a suitable place to pupate. In doing so, they sometimes enter buildings, especially barns and basements of farm houses. The pupae are typically 10–12 mm long, grey-brown, oval, and retain the long tail; they look like a tiny mouse.
The adult fly that emerges from the pupa is harmless. It looks somewhat like a drone honey bee, and likely gains some degree of protection from this resemblance to a stinging insect. The adults are called drone flies because of this resemblance. In its natural habitat, E. tenax is more of a curiosity than a problem. Like other hover flies, they are common visitors to flowers, especially in late summer and autumn, and can be significant pollinators. They often feed on the flowers of carrot and fennel.
Under extremely rare conditions, there have been documented cases of human intestinal myiasis of the rat-tailed maggot (larva of Eristalis tenax). Zumpt proposed a hypothesis called "rectal myiasis". During open defecation in the wilderness, flies attracted to feces may deposit their eggs or larvae near or into the anus, and the larvae then penetrate further into the rectum. The larva can survive, feeding on feces at this site, as long as the breathing tube reaches out from the anus, which is quite rare.


The eggs are normally laid on surface water and go through three distinct larval stages. The larvae are usually found in still or stagnant water, like water reservoirs or liquid dung. Just before the pupation stage, the larvae leave their aquatic environment.


There are still many gaps in the understanding of the drone fly life cycle, and more detailed research is needed.


The eggs are deposited near the surface of foul water or decaying organic material. The eggs are laid side by side, perpendicular to the ground. It is still unknown how long it takes for the eggs to hatch.


The larvae are aquatic, but there must be enough solid food for the larva to complete development. This is why they are found in water with high levels of organic matter. The siphon on the back of the larvae remains at the surface of the water while the larva moves throughout the water. This allows for the larva to search for food without having to go to the surface to breathe. It has been reported that the larvae can reproduce by neoteny or paedogenesis, where the larva copies itself. There has only been one observation of this happening.


Females feed on pollen after they emerge from the pupa and that way they are able to get the nutrients they need to complete reproduction. Their next few meals will consist of nectar from daisies, chrysanthemums, and asters.


The toughness and resilience of E. tenax increases with age; the skin is insoluble even in strong alkaline solutions. There have been reports of decapitated drone-flies living for three days and nights on the stage of a microscope. With its abdomen removed, an adult drone-fly buzzed for more than an hour. The thorax can be sliced open for examination, and the muscular bundles inside may still twitch when an irritant or needle-point is used. Removing the wings seems to produce very little inconvenience to the fly, when put on a flower the fly without wings immediately plunged its proboscis into the center of the flower, and continued to feed for several minutes.


Mating can happen while a pair of E. tenax is flying, with the male uppermost, or on the ground while the female fly is resting on foliage. After mating, the adult female lays clusters of about 10 eggs near dirty, contaminated water, sewage, or decomposing organic substances.


The diet of Eristalis tenax consists mostly of nectar and the pollen of flowers. During the imago stage, the fly drinks mostly nectar, but will take a little water when it is presented.


It was found by researchers that when E. tenax accidentally traps pollen among the body hairs, the pollen grains are combed off by the front and hind tibia, and transferred to pollen-retaining bristles on the front and hind tarsi. The pollen grains that are retained among the front tarsal bristle are eaten directly from the bristles. Those caught by the hind tarsi are transferred in flight, by leg scraping, to the front tarsi, where they are then eaten. E. tenax also eats pollen directly from the anthers of flowers.


Erodium botrys is a species of flowering plant in the geranium family known by the common names longbeak stork's bill, Mediterranean stork's-bill and broadleaf filaree.


Erodium cicutarium, also known as common stork's-bill, redstem filaree, redstem stork's bill or pinweed, is a herbaceous annual – or in warm climates, biennial – member of the family Geraniaceae of flowering plants. It is native to Macaronesia, temperate Eurasia and north and northeast Africa, and was introduced to North America in the eighteenth century, where it has since become naturalized, particularly of the deserts and arid grasslands of the southwestern United States.


It is a hairy, sticky annual, resembling herb Robert but lacking the unpleasant odor. The stems are reddish and bear bright pink flowers, which often have dark spots on the bases. The flowers are arranged in a loose cluster and have ten filaments – five of which are fertile – and five styles. The leaves are pinnate to pinnate-pinnatifid, with hairy stems. The long seed-pod, shaped like the bill of a stork, bursts open in a spiral when ripe, sending the seeds (which have long tails called awns) into the air.


Erodium cicutarium seed uses self-dispersal mechanisms to spread away from the maternal plant and also to reach good germination site to increase fitness. Two techniques that Erodium uses are explosive dispersal, which launches seeds by storing elastic energy, and self-burial dispersal, where Erodium seeds move themselves across the soil using hygroscopically powered shape change.


After flowering, the five pericarps on the fruits of Erodium, and the awns, which are hair-like appendages of pericarps, join together and grow into a spine shape. As the fruits dry, dehydration create tension, and elastic energy develops within the awns. The shape of the awns change from straight to helical, causing them to explosively separate the seeds away from the maternal plants. During dispersal, mechanical energy stored in specialized tissues is transferred to the seeds to increase their kinetic and potential energy. The energy storage capacity of the seeds is determined by the level of hydration, suggesting a role of turgor pressure in the explosive dispersal mechanism.


The awn of each seed, once on the ground, responds to humidity of the environment and changes its shape accordingly. The awn coils under dehydration and uncoils when wet. This results in motor action of the seed, which, combined with hairs on the seed and along the length of the awns, moves the seed across the surface, eventually positioning them into a crevice and creating a drilling action that forces the seed into the ground. The coil and uncoil of the awns are achieved by the hygroscopic tissue in the active layer on the awns. Hygroscopic movement happens with respond to a change in the water content of dead plant tissue, specially in the cell wall. Water absorbed by the cell wall binds to the matrix of the awns, causing it to expand and to drive the cellulose microfibrils apart, which causes the matrix to uncoil, thus straightening the awns. Inversely, the matrix will contract under dehydration, leading to the coil of the awns.
Research found no correlation between weight of the awned fruits and the dispersal distance. E. cicutarium with larger seeds have a longer coil and uncoil time compare to smaller seeds. In the field, the rate of seed burial declined throughout the season. The larger seeds buried themselves more often than the smaller seeds. However, larger seeds have a harder time finding a large enough space for the seeds to be buried. Conversely, smaller seeds have an easier time finding a hole and drilling themselves in, and thus are more likely to be buried.


The advantages of explosive dispersal and self-burial dispersal are to get mature seeds of E.cicutarium quickly to the ground during the most favorable period for burial by hygroscopic mechanisms, thus increase fitness.


The plant is widespread across North America. It grows as an annual in the continent's northern half. In the southern areas of North America, the plant tends to grow as a biennial with a more erect habit and with much larger leaves, flowers, and fruits. It flowers from May until August. Common stork's-bill can be found in bare, sandy, grassy places both inland and around the coasts. It is a food plant for the larvae of the brown argus butterfly.
The seeds of this annual are a species collected by various species of harvester ants.


The young leaves are edible raw or cooked. The whole plant is reportedly edible with a flavor similar to sharp parsley if picked young. According to John Lovell's Honey Plants of North America (1926), "the pink flowers are a valuable source of honey (nectar), and also furnish much pollen". Among the Zuni people, a poultice of chewed root is applied to sores and rashes and an infusion of the root is taken for stomachache.


Erodium moschatum is a species of flowering plant in the geranium family known by the common names musk stork's-bill and whitestem filaree. This is a weedy annual or biennial herb which is native to much of Eurasia and North Africa but can be found on most continents where it is an introduced species. The young plant starts with a flat rosette of compound leaves, each leaf up to 15 centimeters long with many oval-shaped highly lobed and toothed leaflets along a central vein which is hairy, white, and stemlike. The plant grows to a maximum of about half a meter in height with plentiful fuzzy green foliage. The small flowers have five sepals behind five purple or lavender petals, each petal just over a centimeter long. The filaree fruit has a small, glandular body with a long green style up to 4 centimeters in length.
Like Erodium cicutarium, the species is edible.


Erodium texanum, also known as Texas filaree, Texas stork's bill, or heronbill, is a flowering plant which is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. It is an annual or biennial herb.


Eryngium campestre is a stiff, hairless, prickly perennial plant. It resembles the better known sea holly (Eryngium maritimum), but is taller and less robust, and the stem and leaves are paler and not bluish-green. The palmate leaves have more slender lobes which are tipped with spines, and the bracts below the flower heads are slender. The stems are thinner, the branches are longer and the globular flower heads are white and much smaller than the sea holly. This plant flowers between July and September.


Eryngium campestre has a mainly Central and Southern Europe distribution, north to Germany and Holland. It is common in many places but in Germany it is restricted to dry habitats near the Rivers Rhine and Elbe. It is very uncommon in dry grassland on neutral or calcareous soils in the southeast of the British Isles, having first been recorded in 1662 by the naturalist John Ray in Devon. It has statutory protection in Somerset and Devon and is persisting in several sites there, but elsewhere it is mostly a short-lived casual of waste ground, road verges and rough pastures.


Used in herbalism as an infusion to treat coughs, whooping cough and urinary infections. Roots were formerly candied as sweets or boiled and roasted as a vegetable.  The plants active constituents are essential oils, saponins, tannins.


Eryngium leavenworthii, also known as Leavenworth's eryngo, is an annual plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to the central United States. It can reach heights up to 3 feet. It inhabits dry rocky prairies, roadside fields, open woodlands and waste areas. The plant is mostly found in areas with limestone or chalk soils. Its flowers appear between July to September, although in some areas the flowers may bloom as late as November. The flower ranges in length from 1 1/2" to 3" and in width approximately 1/2". It is frequently mistaken for thistle. The flowers sit atop elongated stems on spiked leaves and form cones of purple or wine colored, tightly clustered blossoms that resemble small fuzzy pineapples.  It was named after, Melines Conklin Leavenworth (1796–1862) who is credited with its discovery.


Eryngium maritimum, the sea holly or seaside eryngo, is a species of Eryngium in the plant family Apiaceae and native to most European coastlines. It resembles a plume thistle in that its flower is burr-shaped, but the flowers are metallic blue rather than mauve. Protected from winds this dune plant grows to a height of 20 to 60 cm. Although widespread, it is considered endangered in many areas, such as Germany where its occurrence has been greatly reduced throughout and has become locally extinct in several districts.
In Elizabethan times in England, these plants were believed to be a strong aphrodisiac. They are named in a speech by Falstaff:
"Let the sky rain potatoes;
let it thunder to the tune of Green-sleeves,
hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes [sea-holly],
let there come a tempest of provocation..."
— Falstaff, Act 5, scene v, "The Merry Wives of Windsor", William Shakespeare
Sea holly was nominated the 2002 County flower for the city of Liverpool. Asteroid 199194 Calcatreppola was named after this plant. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 25 September 2018 (M.P.C. 111803).


Eryngium planum, the blue eryngo or flat sea holly, is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native to the area that includes central and southeastern Europe and central Asia. It is an herbaceous perennial thistle growing to 50 cm (20 in) with branched silvery-blue stems, and numerous small blue conical flowerheads surrounded by spiky bracts in summer.


Eryngium planum is used in European folk medicine as a diuretic, a stimulant, and an appetizer owing to its essential oils, and bioactive compounds, and in this usage it may be known as Eryngii plani herba or Eryngii plani radix.


The groups of bioactive compounds present in E. planum are phenolic acids, triterpenoid saponins, flavonoids, coumarins, and essential oils. The wide range of compounds is reflected in the wide range of uses.
Qualitative and quantitative determinations of the phenolic acids by reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP HPLC) show relatively small amounts of rosmarinic, chlorogenic, and caffeic acids in the basal leaves and the roots of intact plants, and greater concentrations in E. planum from in vitro cultures. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the essential oil compounds performed by gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector linked to a mass spectrometer (GC-FID-MS) show the main components of stalk leaf oil, and rosette leaf oil, as monoterpenes (limonene, and α- and β-pinene), sesquiterpenes, and hydrocarbons. (Z)-Falcarinol was found as the major component of root essential oil.


Eryngium yuccifolium, known as rattlesnake master, button eryngo, and button snake-root, is a perennial herb of the parsley family native to the tallgrass prairies of central and eastern North America. It grows from Minnesota east to Ohio and south to Texas and Florida, including a few spots in Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.


The common name "rattlesnake master" is attributed to early European pioneers erroneously believing the plant to be an antidote for rattlesnake venom based upon Native Americans' various medicinal uses of the plant.  The species name yuccifolium "yucca-leaved" was given because its leaves resemble those of yuccas.


The leaves are stiff, long and narrow with a sharp tip, 15–100 cm (0–5 ft) long but only 1–3 cm (0.39–1.18 in) broad. They are bluish-green, and covered in a waxy coating. On the edges are regularly spaced bristles or spines. The root system consists of a central taproot surrounded by thick fleshy fibrous roots.
It grows up to 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall, with 10–40 dense, ball-shaped umbels of flowers produced at the top of each stem. Each of these condensed umbels is 1–3 cm (0.5–1 in) in diameter, resembling flowerheads. Individual flowers in the umbels are small, 3–4 mm in diameter, with greenish-white or bluish-white petals and a faint honey-like scent. Underneath each flower is a spiny green bract, and underneath each flower cluster is a small star-like rosette of spiny bracts. The flowers are produced in July and August.
After the flowerbuds open, the pollen matures and is released two to three days before the stigmas become receptive. This encourages cross-pollination by making it unlikely that a given flower's pollen will fertilize the stigma of the same flower. Rattlesnake master has unusually high seed set (close to 90%).


In remnant natural areas, Eryngium yuccifolium is fairly intolerant of anthropogenic disturbance. It readily establishes when planted in prairie restorations.
The flowers attract many insects, including short and long-tongued bees, flies, beetles, and butterflies, but most numerous of all are wasps. It is a larval host to the rattlesnake-master borer moth (Papaipema eryngii).


It is sold by native plant nurseries for prairie or native meadow restoration and for gardens and landscapes. It does best with full sun and well-drained soil. Slightly acidic to slightly alkaline soil reaction (pH) is best. It can die from root rot if the soil stays wet or moist for too long. Once planted it is best left undisturbed and never dug up and reset as with many perennials because it develops a large taproot and other thick, fleshy roots. It often self-sows a little to a good amount in gardens. When planted from seed, a period of cold-moist stratification is required.


Erynnis funeralis, the funereal duskywing, is a butterfly of the  family Hesperiidae. It is found from southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, south to Argentina and Chile. Strays can be found north up to northern Illinois, north-eastern Nebraska, central Colorado, southern Nevada and central California.
The wingspan is 34–45 mm. They are very similar to the mournful duskywing, but can be distinguished by narrower fore wing with a light brown patch along outer edge. Their wings are black and brown with a white fringe on the hind wings. Adults are seen from February to October.

The larva have a black head and a green body with yellow hairs and yellow markings. Its host plant is often Medicago sativa. Larva feed on various plants, including Robinia neomexicana, Medicago hispida, Lotus scoparius, Olneya tesota, Vicia, and Acmispon. Adults feed on flower nectar.


Erynnis horatius, the Horace's duskywing, is a butterfly of the  family Hesperiidae. It is found from Massachusetts, west to eastern South Dakota, south through most of the eastern United States to Florida, the Gulf Coast, and southern Texas, south in the west through south-eastern Utah, Colorado, north-eastern Arizona, and New Mexico. It is listed as a species of special concern in the US state of Connecticut.
Fringes are brown. Upperside of male forewing is dark brown with little contrast and no white overscaling. Upperside of female forewing is light brown with a contrasting pattern and large transparent spots. Underside of hindwing is usually without two spots below the apex. The male has a costal fold containing yellow scent scales; the female has a patch of scent scales on the 7th abdominal segment. The wingspan is 36–49 mm.
There are two generations in the north, with adults on the wing from April to September; there are three generations in the deep south and Texas, with adults on the wing from January to November. Adults prefer open woodlands and edges, clearings, fence rows, wooded swamps, power-line right-of-ways, open fields and roadsides
Caterpillars are hosted by both red and white oaks including willow oak (Quercus phellos), northern red oak (Q. velutina), scrub oak (Q. ilicifolia), water oak (Q. nigra), post oak (Q. stellata), and live oak (Q. virginiana). Adults consume nectar from flowers up to about 4.5 feet tall, including dogbane, buttonbush, sneezeweed, goldenrod, peppermint, boneset, and winter cress.