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Water-pepper

Water-pepper

Persicaria hydropiper

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How common: Common

Water-pepper is an annual knotweed with a sharp, peppery taste. It grows in damp, open places such as shores, ditches and muddy ground, but also on trampled soils. You can recognise it by its slender, drooping flower clusters and narrow leaves without a dark blotch.

Did you know?

  • Its leaves and stems taste strikingly peppery, which gave the plant its English name.
  • Stems are often reddish, especially in sunny spots.

About the species

Identification

Annual, 20–70 cm tall, upright to slightly leaning, often reddish and branching low. Leaves 5–10 cm, narrow and pointed, almost without a stalk, with smooth edges and no dark blotch. At each leaf joint there is a thin papery cuff around the stem with a short fringe. Flower clusters are long, narrow and drooping, loose to the tip, with tiny greenish to pinkish flowers; some may also appear from lower leaf joints. Small dark seeds follow. Compared with similar knotweeds, it lacks a leaf blotch and its clusters are looser and more drooping. Flowers in Finland from July to September.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

yards and roadsides

Flowering

Jul–Sep

About the habitat

Grows by water and on other open, muddy or compacted ground: shores, puddles, ditches, wet pastures, waste ground, lawns and plantings. Prefers wet or seasonally wet soil but tolerates trampled places. Common in southern Finland and along the west coast up to Vaasa; scarce in Central Finland; reaches Northern Ostrobothnia.

Sources

Photo: Cesar Ormazabal, CC BY 4.0 https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/6159345777

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki leviäimet, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38224

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki versot, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38224

Text: Pinkka: Pieni maatalouslajintuntemus - Puuvartiset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38224

Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Laburnum-Luzula, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38224

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katkeratatar

See also