All Topics  
Wild Buckwheat

 
Wild Buckwheat

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Wild Buckwheat
 
 
  Topics Wild Buckwheat Topic Home

Wild Buckwheat (Fallopia convolvulus, syn Polygonum convolvulus L., Bilderdykia convolvulus (L.) Dumont) is a fast-growing annual
Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates flowers and dies in one year. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed....
 flowering plant
Flowering plant

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of Embryophytes. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of Spermatophyte....
 in the family Polygonaceae
Polygonaceae

Polygonaceae is a family of flowering plants also known as the "knotweed family" or "smartweed family". The name is based on the genus Polygonum....
. It is also known as Black Bindweed, Climbing Bindweed, and Corn Bindweed. It is native throughout Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, Asia
Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
 and northern Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
 .

It is a herbaceous
Herbaceous

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaf and stem that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. A herbaceous plant may be Annual plant, Biennial plant or Perennial plant....
 vine
Vine

A vine is any plant of genus Grape or, by extension, any similar climbing or trailing plant. The word, derived from Latin vinea, referred to the grape-bearing variety....
 growing to 1-2 m long, with alternate triangular leaves
Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
 2-6 cm long.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Wild Buckwheat'
Start a new discussion about 'Wild Buckwheat'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Wild Buckwheat (Fallopia convolvulus, syn Polygonum convolvulus L., Bilderdykia convolvulus (L.) Dumont) is a fast-growing annual
Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates flowers and dies in one year. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed....
 flowering plant
Flowering plant

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of Embryophytes. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of Spermatophyte....
 in the family Polygonaceae
Polygonaceae

Polygonaceae is a family of flowering plants also known as the "knotweed family" or "smartweed family". The name is based on the genus Polygonum....
. It is also known as Black Bindweed, Climbing Bindweed, and Corn Bindweed. It is native throughout Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, Asia
Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
 and northern Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
 .

It is a herbaceous
Herbaceous

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaf and stem that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. A herbaceous plant may be Annual plant, Biennial plant or Perennial plant....
 vine
Vine

A vine is any plant of genus Grape or, by extension, any similar climbing or trailing plant. The word, derived from Latin vinea, referred to the grape-bearing variety....
 growing to 1-2 m long, with alternate triangular leaves
Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
 2-6 cm long. The basal lobes of the leaves are pointed at the petiole. The flower
Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s are small, and greenish-pink to greenish white, clustered on raceme
Raceme

A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate growth and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called Pedicel s — along the axis....
s. These clusters give way to small triangular fruit
Fruit

The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. In botany, which is the scientific study of plants, fruits are the ripened Ovary of flowering plants....
, with one seed
Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
 in each fruit .

Note that while it superficially resemble true bindweed
Bindweed

Bindweed may refer to:* Convolvulus, a genus of about 250 species of flowering plants* Calystegia, a related genus of about 25 species of flowering plants...
s (genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 Convolvulus
Convolvulus

Convolvulus is a genus of about 250 species of flowering plants in the bindweed family Convolvulaceae, with a cosmopolitan distribution....
) there are many notable differences; Wild Buckwheat has ocrea (stipule-sheath at nodes), which true bindweeds do not; bindweeds have conspicuous flowers typical of morning-glories while wild buckweed has flowers that are unobtrusive and only about 4 mm long .

Cultivation and uses

Wild Buckwheat seeds are edible, and were used in the past as a food crop, with remains found in Bronze Age
Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistory, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifact s....
 middens . The seeds are too small and low-yielding to make a commercial crop, and it is now more widely considered a weed
WEED

WEED is a radio station broadcasting a Gospel format. Licensed to Rocky Mount, North Carolina, USA, it serves the area. The station is currently owned by Northstar Broadcasting Corporation....
, occurring in crops
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
, waste areas and roadsides. It is also an invasive species
Invasive species

Invasive species is a phrase with several definitions. The first definition expresses the phrase in terms of non-indigenous species that adversely affect the habitats they invade economically, environmentally or ecologically....
 in North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
 .

Wild Buckwheat prefers cultivated land, but can survive on many different locales and soil
Soil

Soil is the naturally occurring, unconsolidated or loose covering on the Earth's surface. Soil is composed of particles of broken rock that have been altered by chemical and environmental processes including weathering and erosion....
 types . It can be a damaging weed when it is growing in a garden
Garden

A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials....
 or crop, as it can not only damage the plant it entwines itself around, but can also hinder mechanised harvesting.