Inyo buckwheat, Eriogonum latens, Nevada, White Mountains, Middle Creek, Fishlake Valley drainage, elevation 2858 m (9375 ft).

This relatively rare species tends to grow away from the beaten paths, and usually has involved some hard work whenever encountered. It is limited mainly to dry rocky slopes of the mountains cradling Owens Valley in eastern California, at upper montane to subalpine elevations. For this geography alone it is one of my favorite buckwheat species, being found only in the White and Inyo mountains to the east, and across Owens Valley on the east slopes of the Sierra Nevada directly to the west, in Inyo and Mono counties, California, and extending a short way into adjacent Tulare County, California on the west, and Esmeralda County, Nevada on the northeast.

Inyo buckwheat is also one of the more distinctive species, with its combination of perennial habit, leaves basal, green, and short-hairy, and long naked flowering stalks ending in heads of white flowers. It does not seem to have any close relatives among other buckwheats, except maybe the even rarer Klamath Mountain buckwheat (Eriogonum hirtellum), a yellow-flowered serpentine endemic from northwestern California.