Pennsylvania Smartweed
Other Common Names: ladythumb
(Polygonum pensylvanicum, Pesicaria pensylvanica)
Native
Pennsylvania smartweed has sword shaped leaves and small flowers that grow in clusters at the ends of branches. Flowers are rose to white in color.
Management Options
Click here for more information on how to control Pennsylvania smartweed.
Description
Pennsylvania smartweed has branching stems that grow one to six and a half inches tall; they are greenish or reddish in color. Alternate leaves grow on short leaf stalks and are sword shaped. They can be one and a half to nearly nine inches long and a half inch to two inches wide. Flowers have eight lobes and are each no more than 16 hundredths of an inch long. Flowers are typically rose to white in color. They grow in clusters at the end of branches.
Pennsylvania smartweed grows in low marshy ground or in mud along ditches, streams, rivers, and pools. Ducks, small birds, and small mammals eat a lot of smartweed seeds.
Location
Pennsylvania smartweed can be found in nearly all 50 states of the United States.
Propagation
seeds, roots
Management Options
Click here for more information on how to control Pennsylvania smartweed.