BUCKWHEAT. 1 1 8 



Buckwheat (Polygpnum fagopyrum). 



In the neighbourhood of manure-heaps and on the borders of 

 cultivated ground one may come across this plant, which was 

 formerly included in the British Flora, but is now known to be 

 a mere waif of cultivation. Its home is in Central Asia, but it 

 has been so long cultivated as a food-plant in Europe and in 

 the United States that it has become naturalized in most places. 

 In this country it is chiefly grown as a food for pheasants. 

 It is an annual, with a tall, slender, branched, reddish stem, and 

 heart-shaped, almost arrow-headed leaves with entire margins. 

 Flowers in panicles. The individual blossoms consist of five 

 pale reddish sepals, no petals, eight stamens, and three styles. 

 The flowers are of two forms, one with long stamens and short 

 styles ; the other with short stamens and long styles. The 

 fruit is large, three-sided, solitary in a nut, very like beech- 

 mast, whence its folk-name buck- or buck-wheat. It will be 

 noted that at the base of the leaf-stalk is a pair of thin stipules, 

 which sheathe the stem and mark the swollen nodes that give 

 the knotted appearance so characteristic of the genus, and 

 which has given it the name of many knees or joints (Greek 

 polus and gonu}. Buckwheat flowers during July and August. 

 It is a valuable honey-plant, esteemed of bee-masters. There 

 are a dozen British species ; among them : 



I. Bistort or Snake-root (P. bistorta}. Perennial, with large twisted rootstock, 

 Radical leaves long, egg-shaped, the upper part of the leaf-stalk winged. Stem- 

 leaves almost stalkless, broader near the stem. Flowers pink or white, producing 

 honey ; moist meadows. June to September. 



II. Amphibious Buckwheat (P. amphibium). Perennial, rootstock sometimes 

 creeping in the ground, at others floating in the water. If the plant is floating the 

 leaves have long stalks ; if growing on land they are almost stalkless. Stipules 

 tubular, large, smooth in water, bristly on land. Stamens five, styles two. Flowers, 

 rosy-red. July and August ; margins of pools and in other wet places. 



III. Spotted Knotweed (P. persicaria). Annual. Stem erect ; leaves long, 

 narrowly lance-shaped, with a black heart-shaped patch in the centre, downy 

 beneath ; the stipules fringed with a few long hairs. Flowers flesh-coloured ; 

 stamens six, styles two. July to October, in moist places. 



