Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Caryophyllales > Polygonaceae > Persicaria > Persicaria amphibia

Persicaria amphibia (water knotweed; water smartweed)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Persicaria amphibia (syn. Polygonum amphibium) is a species of flowering plant in the knotweed family known by several common names, including longroot smartweed, water knotweed, water smartweed, and amphibious bistort. It is native to much of North America, Asia, Europe, and parts of Africa, and it is known elsewhere as an introduced species and sometimes a noxious weed.
View Wikipedia Record: Persicaria amphibia

Infraspecies

Persicaria amphibia var. amphibia
Persicaria amphibia var. emersa (Longroot smartweed)
Persicaria amphibia var. stipulacea (Water smartweed)
Polygonum amphibium var. amphibium

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-High
Screening - Summer [2]  Porous
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]  Medium
Flower Type [3]  Hermaphrodite
Frost Free Days [2]  3 months 20 days
Fruit/Seed Abundance [2]  Low
Fruit/Seed Begin [2]  Summer
Fruit/Seed End [2]  Fall
Growth Form [2]  Rhizomatous
Growth Period [2]  Summer
Growth Rate [2]  Moderate
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]  Perennial
Pollinators [3]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Propagation [2]  Seed
Root Depth [2]  6 inches (15 cm)
Seed Spread Rate [2]  Moderate
Seed Vigor [2]  Low
Seeds Per [2]  125000 / lb (275578 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [2]  Prostrate
Structure [5]  Herb
Usage [3]  Tannin is obtained from the plant; No more details, but it is likely to be from the root.
Vegetative Spread Rate [2]  Slow
Flower Color [2]  Yellow
Foliage Color [2]  Green
Fruit Color [2]  Brown
Height [3]  12 inches (0.3 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [2]  USDA Zone: 4 Low Temperature: -30 F° (-34.4 C°) → -20 F° (-28.9 C°)
Light Preference [4]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [4]  Moderate Acid
Soil Fertility [4]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [4]  Wet
Water Use [2]  High
View Plants For A Future Record : Persicaria amphibia

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    

Protected Areas

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Erysiphe polygoni (Beet Powdery Mildew)[7]

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
♦ 6Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 7Jorrit 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.
♦ 8HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
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