Polygonum туқымдас өсімдіктер туралы

Genus of flowering plants in the knotweed family Polygonaceae

Polygonum is a genus of about 130 species of flowering plants in the buckwheat and knotweed family Polygonaceae. Common names include knotweed and knotgrass (though the common names may refer more broadly to plants from Polygonaceae). In the Middle English glossary of herbs Alphita ( 1400–1425), it was known as ars smerte. There have been various opinions about how broadly the genus should be defined. For example, buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) has sometimes been included in the genus as Polygonum fagopyrum. Former genera such as Polygonella have been subsumed into Polygonum; other genera have been split off. The genus primarily grows in northern temperate regions. The species are very diverse, ranging from prostrate herbaceous annual plants to erect herbaceous perennial plants. Polygonum species are occasionally eaten by humans, and are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species – see list. Most species are considered weeds in Europe and North America.

When the genus is defined narrowly, Polygonum species are annual or perennial herbaceous plants, rarely shrubby, with much branched stems. The leaves are arranged alternately, usually less than long, with a length greater than the width. They have a membranous ochrea (a sheath around the stem nodes). The flowers are usually bisexual, rarely unisexual, and have five (occasionally four) tepals, the outer being slightly different from the inner ones. There are usually four to six stamens and three (rarely two) styles. The fruit is three sided.

Many species formerly placed in Polygonum have been moved to other genera in the subfamily Polygonoideae. Some synonyms are listed below.

Polygonum fagopyrum L. – buckwheat → Fagopyrum esculentum

Polygonum multiflorum Thunb. → Reynoutria multiflora
Polygonum cuspidatum Siebold & Zucc. – Japanese knotweed → Reynoutria japonica
Polygonum sachalinense F. Schmidt – giant knotweed → Reynoutria sachalinensis

Polygonum vaccinifolium Wall. is an unresolved species name. Persicaria vaccinifolia may be a synonym.

Several species can be eaten cooked, for example during famines. The species Polygonum cognatum, known locally as "madimak", is regularly consumed in central parts of Turkey.

In The Man Who Laughs Victor Hugo wrote of the Comprachicos (child buyers) who created artificial dwarfs, formed "by anointing babies' spines with the grease of bats, moles and dormice" and using drugs such as "dwarf elder, knotgrass, and daisy juice". The idea of such use was also known to Shakespeare, as Beatrice K. Otto pointed out, quoting A Midsummer Night's Dream: