Persicaria perfoliata
| Persicaria perfoliata | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Core eudicots |
| Order: | Caryophyllales |
| Family: | Polygonaceae |
| Genus: | Persicaria |
| Species: | P. perfoliata |
| Binomial name | |
|
Persicaria perfoliata (L.) H. Gross 1919 |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Synonymy
|
|
Persicaria perfoliata is a synonym for Polygonum perfoliatum, a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family. Common names include mile-a-minute weed, devil's tail, giant climbing tearthumb, and Asiatic tearthumb. It is a trailing herbaceous annual vine with barbed stems and triangular leaves. It is native to most of temperate and tropical eastern Asia, from eastern Russia in the north down to the Philippines and India in the south.
Persicaria perfoliata has a reddish stem that is armed with downward pointing hooks or barbs which are also present on the underside of the leaf blades. The light green leaves are shaped like an equilateral (equal-sided) triangle and alternate along the narrow, delicate stems. Distinctive circular, cup-shaped leafy structures, called ocreas, surround the stem at intervals. Flower buds, and later flowers and fruits, emerge from within the ocreas. Flowers are small, white and generally inconspicuous. The fruits are attractive, metallic blue and segmented, each segment containing a single glossy, black or reddish-black seed.
Persicaria perfoliata as a weed generally colonizes open and warm areas, along the edges of woods, wetlands, stream banks, and roadsides, and uncultivated open fields, resulting from both natural and human causes, dense wooded areas where the overstory has opened up increasing the sunlight to the forest floor. Natural areas such as stream banks, parks, open space, road shoulders, forest edges and fence lines are all typical areas to find P. perfoliata. It also occurs in environments that are extremely wet with poor soil structure. Available light and soil moisture are both integral to the successful colonization of this species. It will tolerate shade for a part of the day, but needs a good percentage, 63-100% of the available light. The ability of P. perfoliata to attach to other plants with its recurved barbs and climb over the plants to reach an area of high light intensity is a key to its survival. It can survive in areas with relatively low soil moisture, but demonstrates a preference for high soil moisture.
The first records of Persicaria perfoliata in North America are from Portland, Oregon (1890) and Beltsville, Maryland (1937). Both of these sites were eliminated or did not establish permanent populations of the species. However, the introduction of P. perfoliata somewhere between the late 1930s and 1946 to a nursery site in Stewartstown, York County, Pennsylvania produced a population of this plant that did become established in the wild. It is speculated that the seed was spread with Rhododendron stock. The owner of the nursery was interested in the plant and allowed it to reproduce; subsequent efforts to eradicate it were not successful. The distribution of P. perfoliata has radiated from the York County site into neighboring states. Fifty-five years after its introduction, the range for this plant in the United States had extended as far as 300 miles (480 km) in several directions from the York County, Pennsylvania site.
...
Wikipedia