Knotweed: flowers nearly not noticeable
Photos: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
Tree sparrows picking at knotweed
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Knotweed; Knotgrass |
Harilik linnurohi |
In cities sparrows often reveal where knotweed grows; this relative of buckwheat provides valuable food for domestic birds as well as animals. Depending on the autumn weather knotweed flowers until October and the seeds ripen likewise. The modest flowers with a diameter of a few millimetres are nearly unnoticeable, the seeds are blackish brown and with roughly the same diameter. On one plant a couple of hundred seeds can ripen.
The stem of the plant is generally prostrate and much branched, the leaves small and narrow. The knotweed can be found in dry habitats with poor soil. Because of frequent trampling other plants are often missing from there – all kinds of driveways, the verges of footpaths and also waste lands.
Knotweed
Polygonum aviculare grows in the same conditions and habitats; in practice no difference is made between the species. Both are classed as weeds, but picked in your own yard they are also valuable medicinal herbs.
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