Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Caryophyllales > Polygonaceae > Rumex > Rumex aquaticus

Rumex aquaticus (western dock)

Synonyms:

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-High
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [2]  Plants can contain quite high levels of oxalic acid, which is what gives the leaves of many members of this genus an acid-lemon flavour. Perfectly alright in small quantities, the leaves should not be eaten in large amounts since the oxalic acid can lock-up other nutrients in the food, especially calcium, thus causing mineral deficiencies. The oxalic acid content will be reduced if the plant is cooked. 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;
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Pollinators [2]  Wind
Structure [4]  Herb
Usage [2]  Dark green to brown and dark grey dyes can be obtained from the roots of many species in this genus, They do not need a mordant; The dried and powdered root has a cleansing and detergent affect on the teeth;
Height [2]  5.904 feet (1.8 m)
Light Preference [3]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [3]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [3]  Rich
Soil Moisture [3]  Damp
View Plants For A Future Record : Rumex aquaticus

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Predators

Lycaena dispar (Large copper)[5]
Norellisoma spinimanum[6]
Scopula corrivalaria[5]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Ramularia rubella[7]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 4Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 5HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 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.
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
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