Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Persicaria maculosa
Common name
Redshank, Jesus Plant
Family
Polygonaceae
Where found
Disturbed sites, roadsides, moist places, and along streams. Ranges, and tablelands. Doubtfully naturalised in the ACT. Occasionally in the Sydney area.
Notes
Introduced annual, rarely perennial, herb to 0.60 m high or sprawling. Stems more or less hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 3–15 cm long, 4–25 mm wide, often with a dark purplish blotch about midway on the upper surface, hairy or bristly on the veins and margins, sometimes on the surfaces, surfaces slightly warty; stipular sheath (ocrea) with fringing hairs 2–3 mm long. Flowers with 4-5 pink to whitish 'petals', each 2–4 mm long, united at the base for about a third their length. Spikes oval to broadly cylindrical, dense, but often interrupted below, 10–30 mm long, 7–10 mm in diameter, more or less erect. Flowers Jan.–May.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Persicaria~maculosa (accessed 30 January, 2021)
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