Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Persicaria decipiens

Flowers. Photographer Richard Hartland, Longwarry, Vic

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, Mungerarie State Forest west of Moruya

Flowering plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Line drawings. l. portion of stem showing sheath and leaf base; m. flowering stem. EM Mayfield, E.M., National Herbarium of Victoria, © 2021 Royal Botanic Gardens Board

Common name

Slender knotweed

Family

Polygonaceae

Where found

Muddy ground, stream and lagoon banks, and shallow water. Widespread.

Notes

Herb to about 0.8 m high or sprawling. Stems hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 4–15 cm long, 5–25 mm wide,  often with a purplish blotch near the middle of the upper surface, hairless, margins and main veins with short stiff bristles, stipular sheath (ocrea) with fringing hairs 2–10 mm long. Flowers pink, with 4-5 'petals' each 1.7–3 mm long, free from each other for about two-thirds their length, without oil glands. Spikes cylindrical, slender, rather limp, 2–6 cm long, 2–5 mm in diameter. Flowers summer-autumn.

All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Persicaria~decipiens (accessed 29 January, 2021)