Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Caryophyllales > Polygonaceae > Persicaria > Persicaria hydropiper

Persicaria hydropiper (marshpepper knotweed; mild water-pepper; annual smartweed)

Synonyms: Polygonum escluseanum; Polygonum insolitum; Polygonum pallidum; Polygonum vasconicum

Wikipedia Abstract

Water-pepper, water pepper or marshpepper knotweed (Persicaria hydropiper, syn. Polygonum hydropiper) is a plant of the family Polygonaceae. It grows in damp places and shallow water. It is a widespread plant, found in Australia, New Zealand, temperate Asia, Europe, and North America. It has some use as a spice because of its pungent flavor.
View Wikipedia Record: Persicaria hydropiper

Infraspecies

Persicaria hydropiper hydropiper
Persicaria hydropiper microcarpa

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-High
Screening - Summer [2]  Moderate
Screening - Winter [2]  Porous
Bloom Period [2]  Late Spring
Drought Tolerance [2]  None
Edible [3]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Fire Tolerance [2]  None
Flower Type [3]  Hermaphrodite
Frost Free Days [2]  4 months
Fruit/Seed Abundance [2]  High
Fruit/Seed Begin [2]  Summer
Fruit/Seed End [2]  Fall
Growth Form [2]  Single Crown
Growth Period [2]  Summer
Growth Rate [2]  Rapid
Hazards [3]  Although no specific mention has been made for this species, there have been reports that some members of this genus can cause photosensitivity in susceptible people. Many species also contain oxalic acid (the distinctive lemony flavour of sorrel) - whilst not toxic this substance can bind up other minerals making them unavailable to the body and leading to mineral deficiency. Having said that, a number of common foods such as sorrel and rhubarb contain oxalic acid and the leaves of most members of this genus are nutritious and beneficial to eat in moderate quantities. Cooking the leaves will reduce their content of oxalic acid. People with a tendency to rheumatism, arthritis, gout, kidney stones or hyperacidity should take especial caution if including this plant in their diet since it can aggravate their condition;
Leaf Type [2]  Deciduous
Lifespan [3]  Annual
Pollinators [3]  Bats
Propagation [2]  Seed
Regrowth Rate [2]  Slow
Root Depth [2]  6 inches (15 cm)
Seed Spread Rate [2]  Moderate
Seed Vigor [2]  High
Seeds Per [2]  275000 / lb (606271 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [2]  Semi-Erect
Structure [5]  Herb
Usage [3]  A yellow-gold dye is obtained from the stalks;
Vegetative Spread Rate [2]  None
Flower Color [2]  Red
Foliage Color [2]  Green
Fruit Color [2]  Black
Height [3]  30 inches (0.75 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [2]  USDA Zone: 12 Low Temperature: 50 F° (10 C°) → 55 F° (12.8 C°)
Light Preference [4]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [4]  Moderate Acid
Soil Fertility [4]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [4]  Damp
Water Use [2]  High
View Plants For A Future Record : Persicaria hydropiper

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Central & Western Europe Austria, Belgium, Byelarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom Palearctic Temperate Floodplain River and Wetlands    
Upper Danube Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland Palearctic Temperate Floodplain River and Wetlands    

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Providers

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Pegomya bicolor[10]
Ramularia rubella[6]
Septoria polygonorum[10]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 3Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 4ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 5Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 8Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 9Robertson, C. Flowers and insects lists of visitors of four hundred and fifty three flowers. 1929. The Science Press Printing Company Lancaster, PA.
♦ 10Ecology of Commanster
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0