POLYGONUM 
113 
Formerly used medicinally, and still gathered, under the name of “Pash dock” or Passion dock, in the north of 
England for culinary purposes. In many districts, it exists merely as a relic of cultivation ; but it is difficult to resist the 
conclusion that it is indigenous on the siliceous soils of the Pennines (and doubtless elsewhere), where it simulates its 
occurrence in the Swiss sub-Alpine manured pastures. It is a nitrophilous or heminitrophilous plant. 
Damp pastures of cultivated land where it is locally, as on the lower slopes of the Pennines, 
a social plant, and also by stream-sides and in grassy woods ; most abundant on siliceous soils. 
Rather local, but occurring throughout almost the whole of England and Wales, and southern and 
north-eastern Scotland ; rare in western and northern Scotland ; rather local in Ireland, except the 
north-east; ascending to 330 m. in the West Riding of Yorkshire. 
Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany, France, central Europe (to 2400 m. in the Alps), mountains 
of southern Europe ; Asia Minor, central Asia. 
6 . POLYGONUM VIVIPARUM. Alpine Bistort. Plate 121 
Bistorta minor Gerard Herb. 322 ( 1 597 ) > R a y Syn. ed. 3, 147 (1724). 
Polygonum viviparum L. Sp. PI. 360 (1753)!; Syme Eng. Bot. viii, 80 (1868); Rouy FI. France xii, 
95 (1910). 
M. II. 
Map 18. Distribution of Polygonum viviparum in the British Isles 
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