Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Mild water-pepper smartweed

MILD WATER-PEPPER SMARTWEED

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Persicaria hydropiperoides (Michx. ) Small

[=Polygonum hydropiperoides Michx.]

Lyon County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 6 to 40 inches

Family: Polygonaceae - Buckwheat Family

Flowering Period: June, July, August, September,October

Stems:

Decumbent to ascending, usually branched, mostly glabrous.

Leaves:

Mostly cauline, mostly alternate; ocrea brown, cylindric, 1/5 to 1 inch, papery, base inflated, margins truncate, fringed with bristles 1/6 to 2/5 inch, surface glabrous or strigose; petiole to 4/5 inch; blade without dark blotch on upper surface, broadly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 2 to 10 inches long, 1/5 to 1 1/2 inch wide, base tapered to acute, margins entire, appressed-pubescent, tip acuminate, surfaces glabrous or appressed-pubescent along midveins and sometimes throughout, usually glandular-punctate abaxially.

Inflorescences:

Spike-like or panicle-like, erect, terminal, sometimes also axillary, uninterrupted to interrupted proximally, 1 1/5 to 3 1/5 inch long, 1/12 to 1/5 inch wide; peduncle 2/5 to 1 1/5 inch, glabrous or strigose.

Flowers:

Pedicels short, ascending. Flowers bisexual or unisexual and staminate, 2--6 per fascicle; perianth pink proximally, pink, white, or greenish white distally, not glandular-punctate or sometimes glandular-punctate on inner tepals; tepals 5, obovate, 1/10 to 1/6 inch in bisexual flowers, 1/16 to 1/10 inch in staminate flowers, veins prominent or not, not anchor-shaped; stamens 8, included or exserted in staminate flowers; styles 3, deciduous, included.

Fruits:

Achenes, brown to black, 3-angled, 1/16 to 1/8 inch, shiny, smooth.

Habitat:

Mud flats in marshes and along shores of ponds and lakes, wet prairies, spring runs.

Distribution:

Nearly statewide

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Persicaria, peach and pertaining to, alluding to the resemblance of the leaves of some species to those of the peach.

Mild water-pepper smartweed flowers