Distribution: Occurring east of the Cascades crest in Washington; Washington to California, east to Montana, Idaho, and Nevada.
Habitat: Sandy or rocky soils, sagebrush desert to ponderosa pine forests.
Flowers: May-July
Origin: Native
Growth Duration: Perennial
Conservation Status: Not of concern
Pollination: Bumblebees, bees, flies, butterflies, beetles, wasps
Perennial with woody stems up to 1 dm. long, the several flowering stems to 3 dm. tall, usually white-woolly throughout and more or less freely branched.
Mostly basal, the blades elliptic to ovate, 5-25 mm. long, usually white-woolly on the lower surface and less so on the top, on petioles as long to 4 times as along as the blades.
Flowering stems leafless, the inflorescence from open and freely branched with the involucres single at the branch tips to umbellate and the involucres somewhat clustered; with small, linear bracts at the forks of the branches; involucres narrowly cup-shaped, with 5 triangular, erect, short teeth; tepals white or cream to pinkish or yellow, 3-4 mm. long, divided nearly to the non-stipitate base, the segments oblong, the outer twice as broad as the inner.
Eriogonum strictum plants with the branched inflorescence may be separated from the similar E. niveum by the bracts at the branch joints, which are small and thread-like in E. strictum and leaf-like in E. niveum. The E. strictum plants with umbellate and somewhat compressed flower clusters may be confused with E. ovalifolium when the tight, head-like flower clusters of the latter are in umbels instead of single.
PNW Herbaria: Specimen records of Eriogonum strictum in the Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria database
WA Flora Checklist: Eriogonum strictum checklist entry
OregonFlora: Eriogonum strictum information
E-Flora BC: Eriogonum strictum atlas page
CalPhotos: Eriogonum strictum photos