Plant Species: Polygonum bistortoides, American bistort
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicotyledons
Order: Polygonales
Family: Polygonaceae -- buckwheat
Genus: Polygonum
Species: bistortoides
Variety: no infraspecific taxa are recognized
Common Name: American bistort
Species Code: POBI6
Origin: Native to wet meadows and streambanks of western North America from British Columbia to California and east to New Mexico and Alberta.
Rare: no
Form: forb, perennial from a short, thick, bulb-like rhizome; stems 1-several, simple, erect, 20-60 cm tall.
Mature height: 8-24 inches
Duration: perennial
Longevity: medium lifespan
Habitat Type: wetland
Wetland Indicator Status: FACW
Leaves: mostly basal, long petiolate, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, glabrous and sometimes puberulent and glaucous underneath, 5-20 cm long; cauline leaves few, alternate, strongly reduced upward, mostly sessile, lanceolate.
Flowers: borne in a terminal spike-like raceme of numerous flowers, 2-4 cm long; perianth 4-5 mm long, connate at the base, dividing into 5 equal, oblong, white to pink segments; stamens 8, exserted.
Flower color: white, pink
Bloom: May, June
Bloom starts on:
Bloom ends on:
Fruit: achene, triquetrous, shiny, brown, smooth, about 4 mm long.
Vegetation type:
Characteristics:
Bistorta bistortoides in Flora of North America (Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993).
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.
125,000 seeds/lb (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2010).
Perennating organ is technically a rhizome, although it may appear bulb-like.
x=12 (University of British Columbia 2003).
2n=24 (Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993).
Flowers are perfect.
Roots are edible raw or cooked.
Fruit is an achene.
Diploids and tetraploids exist. Working with material from California and Wyoming, Mooney (1963) found that diploids reproduced by seed while tetraploids reproduced vegetatively.
Bears and rodents eat the roots and the foliage is grazed by deer and elk (Craighead et al 1963).
Polygonum species are hosts to larva of the purplish copper butterfly, Lycaena helloides (Pocewicz 2005).
Comments:
Sun requirement: full sun
Soil moisture: wet
Precipitation: 10-30 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2010), although mean annual precipitation is probably not a good indicator of range for a wetland plant.
Fire: Fire reduces competition from sedges (Carex spp.), cattails (Typha spp.), and giant reed (Phragmites spp.) and increases cover of Polygonum spp. (Snyder 1992).
Hazards:
Sowing time: fall
Transplant time: fall or spring
Stratification: cold moist
Seed yield: no information available
Seed harvest: no information available
Seed first harvest: no information available
Seed cleaning: no information available
Planting duration: medium
Seed insect problem: no information available
Seed shatter: no information available
Seed size: medium
Seed harvest date: no information available
Seed comments:
Keywords: native perennial wetland forb
Alternate Genus: Bistorta
Alternate Species:
Alternate Variety:
Propagation:
1 protocol in the Native Plant Network
Rocky Mountain National Park, CO
Other Propagation Information:
Seed germination requires 3 weeks of cold moist stratification at 4oC with weak light, then grow in a greenhouse at 20-25oC. Some germination occurs during stratification (Allessio 1967).
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.
Notes: wet meadow taxon occurring before 1917 in the Palouse (Weaver 1917).
References:
Allessio, Mary L. 1967. Observations of Seedling Development in
Polygonum bistortoides. American Journal of Botany 54:1272-1274.
Craighead, John J., Frank C. Craighead, and Ray J. Davis. 1963. A Field Guide to Rocky Mountain Wildflowers. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, MA.
Diggle, Pamela K., Margaret A. Meixner, Amy B. Carroll, and Christie F. Aschwanden. 2002. Barriers to Sexual Reproduction in Polygonum viviparum: A Comparative Development Analysis of P. viviparum and P. bistortoides. Annals of Botany 89:145-156.
Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 7+ vols. New York and Oxford. Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.fna.org/FNA/
Mooney, H.A. 1963. Physiological Ecology of Coastal, Subalpine, and Alpine Populations of Polygonum bistortoides. Ecology 44:812-816.
Pocewicz, Amy. 2005. Host Plants of Palouse Butterfly Species. 2 page handout to accompany the April 2005 presentation to the Palouse Prairie Foundation.
Snyder, S. A. 1992. Polygonum spp. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available: http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/ [2010, January 17].
University of British Columbia. 2003. British Columbia Flora. University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research. Accessed 9/1/09 online at http://www.bcflora.org/
USDA NRCS. 2010. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 12 January 2010). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.
Weaver, J.E. 1917. A Study of the Vegetation of Southeastern Washington and Adjacent Idaho. University Studies 18(1):1-131. University of Nebraska. Lincoln, Nebraska.