This is a species which is uncommon (and now counted as rare by Stace in Edition 3) and scattered over the British Isles. Being a late flowering annual, it will only be discovered in a late season hunt. It tends to grow with Persicaria hydropiper (Water Pepper) so you can immediately see differences such as colour and leaf shape. It isn't as peppery to taste as P hydropiper either but the best diagnostic, apart from the fact it just looks different, is the fringed ochrea in P minor. The ochrea, are stipules or leaf like structures at the junction of a leaf and stem and have fused into a little pouch in the Persicaria genus.

P. minor is scattered in England and Wales and uncommon or rare in Scotland and Ireland.

LHS: Porthmadog estuary 25th Sept 2005 RHS: Stocks reservoir 22nd Sept 2005

Added on September 25th 2005, updated February 25th 2011