The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Persicaria minor
Also called Pygmy Smartweed, Lesser Persicaria, Asian Knotweed
Persicaria minor is a small, creeping herb in the buckwheat family, grown in Southeast Asia for its peppery leaves used in cooking. It thrives in moist soil near water, such as ditches, canals and cool highlands.
Persicaria minor is species of herb in the family Polygonaceae. Common names include pygmy smartweed, small water pepper and swamp willow weed. This herb is native to Asia, but distributed widely in Europe and Australia. It is used in South East Asian cooking.
Persicaria minor is an edible, aromatic herb. In Malaysia and Indonesia it has the common name "kesum", and its shoots and young leaves are eaten raw as part of salad (ulam); Used as an aroma spice additive in peppery dishes such as laksa, nasi kerabu, asam pedas and tom yam; used as tea leaves; and used for topical applications in traditional medicine. Its oil has been used for aromatherapy and in treatments for dandruff. In Malaysian traditional medicine, P. minor has been used in post-natal tonics and for treatment of digestion.
Amphibious Bistort · Pink Headed Knotweed · Chinese Knotweed · Water pepper · Curlytop knotweed · Redshank · Persicaria microcephala · Vietnamese Coriander · Pinkweed · Asiatic Tearthumb · Dotted Smartweed · Persicaria tinctoria
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Persicaria minor by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
