Knotgrass seeds

Knotgrass or prostrate knotweed, birdweed, pigweed and lowgrass / Polygonum aviculare - annual herbaceous plant 10-80 cm high, which propagates every year by self-sowing.

Medicinal plant, fodder (for poultry). Young leaves can be eaten in salads, soups, mashed leaves. Knotgrass is widely used as an astringent, anti-inflammatory, choleretic, diuretic, as an antiseptic, antispasmodic, analgesic, diaphoretic, antipyretic, emollient, expectorant, laxative, antihelminthic, hypotensive, wound healing agent.

On well-fertilized soil, it grows violently, forming a continuous carpet (popularly called "grass-ant"), suppressing other plants. Dyes are obtained from the grass (blue from the roots).

The Russian name "Sporysh" was given to the plant for its ability to quickly restore damaged shoots. In East Slavic mythology, knotweed is a symbol of fertility.

Stem up to 60 cm long, strongly branched, erect, recumbent from the base, rarely ascending or prostrate. The nodes are strongly pronounced. After flowering, the stems become hard.

The root is thicker than the branches, taproot, slightly branched.

The leaves are small, alternate, elliptical or linear-lanceolate, 1.5-5 cm long and 0.4-1.5 cm wide with short petioles, entire, always without punctate glands, grayish-green. In the nodes, small whitish membranous bilobed funnels 7–13 mm long are noticeable.

The flowers are small, with pale green, pink or white lobes along the edges. Bunches of 2-5 flowers are located in the axils of the leaves, the plates of which are much longer than the flowers. The perianth tube is equal to its lobes. Perianth simple, five-membered, about half incised, cracking in fruits, white or green with pink edges. Stamens 8, pistils 3.

It blooms from April until almost the end of autumn, most intensively in July-August. The fruit is an almost black or brown trihedral opaque nutlet, almost equal in length to the perianth.

The fruits ripen in July-September.

Grows in trampled fields, wastelands, river banks, in yards, on paths, along roads, pastures, permanent dry pastures, on ramparts, near dwellings, etc. Resistant to trampling.