Description :

• Annual or perennial herbs, erect, prostrate, decumbent, scandent or floating, often swollen at nodes
• Leaves sessile, subsessile or petiolate, always distinctly longer than broad, varying from linear to lanceolate to elliptic to ovate; apex acute, obtuse or rounded; rounded or cuneate at base; glabrous, hirsute, hispid, tomentose, or glandular-punctate on one or both surfaces; margins often edged with hispid hairs; ocrea stem-clasping, tubular, entire or lobed or fringed terminally with bristles or cilia or ending in a herbaceous spreading limb, glabrous, hirsute or hispid
• Inflorescence paniculate, spike-like or capitate
• Flowers bisexual
• Perianth 3-5-lobed or -partite in one whorl, persistent; lobes or segments equal or outer slightly larger
• Stamens 5-8, arising near base of perianth; anthers with 2 thecae united by short connective
• Ovary 3-angled with 3 styles, or lenticular with 2 styles; stigmas capitate, usually entire
• Fruit a 3-angled or lenticular nut, dark brown or black, shiny or dull, enclosed in persistent perianth or slightly protruding from it for less than half its length
• x = 10, 11, 12 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Persicaria (L.) Mill.
  • Miller: [1054] (1754)
  • Haraldson: 70 (1978)
  • Brandbyge: 542 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 150, cosmopolitan in temperate regions
• Southern Africa : Species 10, including some introductions; widespread