Polygonum aviculareL.

Prostrate Knotweed

WFO wfo-0000489656 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Polygonum aviculare, photographed by Charla
fig. a Charla, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-08 / obs. 204514333
Polygonum aviculare, photographed by Leila Dasher
fig. b Leila Dasher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204539746
Polygonum aviculare, photographed by Grzegorz Grzejszczak
fig. c Grzegorz Grzejszczak, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 203785012
Polygonum aviculare, photographed by Ren Hoekstra
fig. d Ren Hoekstra, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195730343
Polygonum aviculare, photographed by Zakqary Roy
fig. e Zakqary Roy, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198631549
Polygonum aviculare, photographed by Zakqary Roy
fig. f Zakqary Roy, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198630254
Polygonum aviculare, photographed by Dave Richardson
fig. g Dave Richardson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199380923
Polygonum aviculare, photographed by Dave Richardson
fig. h Dave Richardson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 192976445

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 1,360 observations

Peak flowering in Aug, from 1,360 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 44 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Avicularia vulgaris Didrichs.
  • Centinodium axillare Friche-Joset & Montandon
  • Polygonum aequale subsp. oedocarpum Lindm.
  • Polygonum agreste Sumnev.
  • Polygonum aphyllum Krock.
  • Polygonum araraticum Kom.
  • Polygonum argenteum Ehrenb. ex Meisn.
  • Polygonum argenteum Skvortsov
  • Polygonum aviculare subsp. aviculare
  • Polygonum aviculare subsp. heterophyllum (Lindm.) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Polygonum aviculare subsp. microspermum (Jord. ex Boreau) Berher
  • Polygonum aviculare subsp. monspeliense (Thiéb.-Bern. ex Pers.) Arcang.
  • Polygonum aviculare subsp. neglectum (Besser) Arcang.
  • Polygonum aviculare subsp. rectum Chrtek
  • Polygonum aviculare var. angustissimum Meisn.
  • Polygonum aviculare var. aviculare
  • Polygonum aviculare var. depressum Meisn.
  • Polygonum aviculare var. eximium Asch. & Graebn.
  • Polygonum aviculare var. heterophyllum (Lindm.) Munshi & Javeid
  • Polygonum aviculare var. neglectum (Besser) Rchb.
  • Polygonum aviculare var. vegetum Ledeb.
  • Polygonum berteroi Phil.
  • Polygonum buxiforme Small
  • Polygonum fusco-ochreatum Kom.

and 20 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.