BUCKWHEAT FAMILY 



POLYGONACE^E BUCKWHEAT FAMILY 



Polygonella articulata, (L.) Meisn. 



Deep rose colour to white Sand Knotweed, 



Coast Jointweed, 

 July-October Sand-grass. 



Polygonella: a diminutive for polygonum, Greek for many 



joints. 

 Articulata: Latin for jointed. 



THE PREFERRED HABITAT: very sandy soil, or even beach 

 sand. 



THE PLANT: erect, or sometimes diffusely spreading, six 

 inches to eighteen inches high, simple or branched; the 

 stem slender, wiry, grooved, and slightly angled, having 

 a bloom; the sheaths slightly expanded at the top. 



THE LEAVES: fall early, when present alternate; linear; 

 stemless; the margins so rolled backwards that the leaves 

 appear thread-like. 



THE FLOWERS: small, numerous, in very slender racemes, 

 on stems; petals lacking; the parts of the calyx with a 

 dark mid-rib. 



THE FRUIT: achenes, brown, smooth, and shining. 



A feathery plant, when in bloom, whose delicately 

 tinted whitish flowers are frequently mistaken for "white 

 heather." But the knees of the leafless stem and the ab- 

 sence of petals are marks by which one can place it in 

 the Buckwheat and not in the Heath Family. 



Twenty-three other members of the Buckwheat Family 

 have been reported. 



79 



