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Persicaria perfoliata
Also called Mile A Minute Weed, Giant Climbing Tearthumb, Devil's Tail Tearthumb, Mile A Minute Vine, Minuteweed, Tearthumb, Devil's Tail
An aggressive annual climbing vine with barbed stems and triangular leaves, grown in its native range and treated as a serious invasive weed elsewhere. It spreads by seed and climbs over other plants, so it is not recommended for home gardens.
Persicaria perfoliata (basionym Polygonum perfoliatum) is a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family. Common names include mile-a-minute, devil's tail, giant climbing tearthumb, and Asiatic tearthumb. It is a trailing herbaceous annual vine with barbed stems and triangular leaves. It is native to most of temperate and tropical eastern Asia, occurring from eastern Russia and Japan in the north, and the range extending to the Philippines and India in the south.
P. perfoliata can be an aggressive, highly invasive weed outside of its native range. In Europe, Persicaria perfoliata is included since 2016 in the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union concern (the Union list). This implies that this species cannot be imported, cultivated, transported, commercialized, planted, or intentionally released into the environment in the whole of the European Union.
Persicaria perfoliata is primarily a self-pollinating plant (supported by its inconspicuous, closed flowers with little scent), with occasional outcrossing. Fruits and viable seeds are produced without assistance from pollinators. Vegetative propagation from roots has not been successful for this plant. It is a very tender annual, withering with a slight frost, and reproduces successfully until the first frost. P. perfoliata is a prolific seeder, producing many seeds on a single plant over a long season, from June until October in Virginia, and a slightly shorter season in more northern geographic areas. It can cover as much as 30 feet (9.1 m) in a single season, maybe even more in the southern United States.
Birds are probably the primary long-distance dispersal agents of P. perfoliata. Transport of seeds over short distances by native ant species has been observed. This activity is probably encouraged by the presence of a tiny white food body (elaiosome) on the tip of the seed that may be attractive to the ants.
Persicaria perfoliata contains phenylpropanoid esters such as 6'-acetyl-3,6-diferuloylsucrose (helonioside B), 2',4',6'-triacetyl-3,6-diferuloylsucrose, 1, 2',4',6'-tetraacetyl-3,6-diferuloylsucrose, 1,2',6'-triacetyl-3, 6-diferuloylsucrose, 2',6'-diacetyl-3,6-diferuloylsucrose, 1,3,6-tri-p-coumaroyl-6'-feruloylsucroses, vanicoside A and vanicoside B.
Persicaria perfoliata prefers warm open areas, along the edges of woods, wetlands, stream banks, and roadsides, and uncultivated open fields, resulting from both natural and human causes, dense wooded areas where the overstory has opened up increasing the sunlight to the forest floor. Natural areas such as stream banks, parks, open space, road shoulders, forest edges and fence lines are all typical areas to find P. perfoliata. It also occurs in environments that are extremely wet with poor soil structure.
In traditional Chinese medicine, Persicaria perfoliata is known as gangbangui (Chinese: 杠板归; pinyin: gāngbǎngūi), and is thought to be useful for various remedies in herbal medicine. It can also be used as a fiber or used in rope making.
Amphibious Bistort · Pink Headed Knotweed · Chinese Knotweed · Water pepper · Curlytop knotweed · Redshank · Persicaria microcephala · Small water-pepper · Vietnamese Coriander · Pinkweed · Dotted Smartweed · Persicaria tinctoria
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Persicaria perfoliata 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.
