Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T15:20:54.363Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pale Smartweed (Polygonum lapathifolium L.) and Other Polygonums

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2017

Larry W. Mitich
Larry W. Mitich*
Affiliation:
Department of Vegetable Crops, University of California, Davis, CA 95616
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The name Polygonum is a very ancient derivative, composed of the two Greek words, polys, many, and gony, knee or joint, alluding to the numerous and conspicuous nodes in the stems of many species. The Greek physician Heraclides Tarentina (third and second centuries BC) prescribed prostrate knotweed, P. aviculare L., as a remedy against bleeding from the ear. Dioscorides, a Greek botanist, was the first to characterize Polygonum as having “numerous slender branches, creeping on the ground like grass, with fruit at each leaf.” Subsequently, other Greek physicians, poets, and botanists applied the name to the knotweed/smartweed group, and in 1753, Linneaus adopted it for the genus. The species name for pale smartweed, lapathifolium, is from lapathi, meaning sorrel-like or dock-like (Gledhill 1985; Hyam and Pankhurst 1995; Small 1895).

Type
Intriguing World of Weeds
Information
Weed Technology , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 560 - 562
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by the Weed Science Society of America 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Allan, M. 1978. Weeds, the Unbidden Guests in Our Gardens. New York: Viking Press. 191 p.Google Scholar
Aulbach-Smith, C. A. and de Kozlowski, S. J. 1996. Aquatic and Wetland Plants of South Carolina. Columbia: South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. 127 p.Google Scholar
Gledhill, D. 1985. The Names of Plants. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 202 p.Google Scholar
Heywood, V. H. 1993. Flowering Plants of the World. New York: Oxford University Press. 335 p.Google Scholar
Holm, L., Doll, J., Holm, E., Panchho, J., and Herberger, J. 1997. World Weeds, Natural Histories and Distribution. New York: J. Wiley. 1,129 p.Google Scholar
Hyam, R. and Pankhurst, P. 1995. Plants and Their Names, A Concise Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 545 p.Google Scholar
Mabberley, J. D. 1989. The Plant-Book. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 706 p.Google Scholar
Muenscher, W. C. 1935. Weeds. New York: Macmillan Company. 577 p.Google Scholar
Renfrew, J. M. 1973. Palaeoethnobotany: The Prehistoric Food Plants of the Near East and Europe. New York: Columbia University Press. 248 p.Google Scholar
Salisbury, E. 1961. Weeds and Aliens. London: Collins. 384 p.Google Scholar
Simmonds, N. 1945. Biological flora of the British Isles: Polygonum . J. Ecol. 33:117–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, J. A. and Weiner, E.S.C. 1989. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Volume 15. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 778.Google Scholar
Small, J. K. 1895. A Monograph of the North American Species of the Genus Polygonum. Lancaster, PA: New Era Print. 183 p.Google Scholar
Staniforth, D. and Cavers, P. 1976. An experimental study of water dispersal in Polygonum spp. Can. J. Bot. 54:2587–2596.Google Scholar
Stevens, O. A. 1957. Weights of seeds and numbers per plant. Weeds 5:46–55.Google Scholar