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Fagopyrum dentatum

Interesting Facts

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Description

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Family Polygonaceae

Herbs, shrubs , or small trees , sometimes monoecious or dioecious. Stems erect , prostrate , twining , or scandent , often with swollen nodes, striate , grooved , or prickly. Leaves simple , alternate, rarely opposite or whorled , petiolate or subsessile ; stipules often united to a sheath (ocrea) . Inflorescence terminal or axillary , spicate , racemose, paniculate , or capitate. Pedicel occasionally articulate . Flowers small, actinomorphic , bisexual , rarely unisexual . Perianth 3-6-merous, in 1 or 2 series, herbaceous, often enlarged in fruit or inner tepals enlarged, with wings , tubercles , or spines. Stamens usually (3-) 6-9, rarely more; filaments free or united at base ; anthers 2-loculed, opening lengthwise; disk annular (often lobed ) . Ovary superior, 1-loculed; styles 2 or 3, rarely 4, free or connate at lower part. Fruit a trigonous , biconvex , or biconcave achene; seed with straight or curved embryo and copious endosperm.

About 50 genera and 1120 species: worldwide, but primarily N temperate with a few species in tropical regions ; 13 genera (two endemic) and 238 species (65 endemic) in China.[1]

Genus Fagopyrum

Herbs, annual ; taprooted. Stems erect or ascending , glabrous or puberulent . Leaves deciduous, cauline, alternate, petiolate (proximal leaves) or sessile (distal leaves) ; ocrea persistent or deciduous, chartaceous ; petiole base articulated; blade cordate, triangular, hastate, or sagittate , margins entire to sinuate . Pedicels present. Inflorescences axillary , or terminal and axillary, racemelike or paniclelike, pedunculate . Flowers bisexual or, rarely, bisexual and staminate on same plant, 2-6 per ocreate fascicle, heterostylous or homostylous, base stipelike; perianth nonaccrescent, white, pale pink, or green, broadly campanulate , glabrous; tepals 5, distinct , petaloid , dimorphic , outer smaller than inner; stamens 8; filaments distinct, free , glabrous; anthers white, pink, or red, oval to elliptic ; styles 3, reflexed , distinct; stigmas capitate. Achenes strongly exserted, brown to dark brown or gray, sometimes mottled black, unwinged or essentially so, bluntly to sharply 3-gonous, glabrous. Seeds: embryo folded. x = 8.

Species 16: introduced ; Eurasia , e Africa; introduced elsewhere, cultivated in temperate regions worldwide.

Fagopyrum esculentum and F. tataricum are cultivated widely. In North America, they often escape , but populations generally are ephemeral .

Archaeological evidence for the cultivation of buckwheat dates to 4600 bp in China and 3500 bp in Japan (O. Ohnishi 1998). Molecular studies indicate that Fagopyrum comprises two major clades, with F. esculentum and F. tataricum in the large-fruited œcymosum group (O. Ohnishi and Y. Matsuoka 1996; Y. Yasui and O. Ohnishi 1998, 1998b; O. Ohsako and O. Ohnishi 2000).[2]

Taxonomy

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Notes

Publishing author : Moench Publication : Methodus (Moench) 290 1794 [4 May 1794]

Similar Species

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Members of the genus Fagopyrum

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 5 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

F. convolvulus (Climbing Buckwheat) · F. cymosum (Wild Buckwheat) · F. dibotrys (Perennial Buckwheat) · F. esculentum (Buckwheat) · F. tataricum (Green Buckwheat)

More Info

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Further Reading

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Notes

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Contributors

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Anjen Li, Bojian Bao, Alisa E. Grabovskaya-Borodina, Suk-pyo Hong, John McNeill, Sergei L. Mosyakin, Hideaki Ohba & Chong-wook Park "Polygonaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 5 Page 277. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
  2. Harold R. Hinds , Craig C. Freeman "Fagopyrum". in Flora of North America Vol. 5. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
Last Revised: 2012-07-27