Polygonum Majus

Polygonum majus is a North American species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family known by the common name wiry knotweed. It grows in the western United States and western Canada, from British Columbia south as far as the Sierra Nevada of northwestern Inyo County in California, east as far as Montana. Knotweed is a spreading, wiry annual weed that rarely grows higher than a few inches. The leaves are tiny, oblong, bluish-green, and 14 inches broad and 1 inch long. The flowers are tiny and unobtrusive, whitish-green in colour, and appear in the leaf axils in the fall. Knotweed may grow into a dense mat with a diameter of up to three feet, strangling out ideal grass and plants. The branches of this evergreen plant form a strong, wiry mat that reaches barely a few centimeters above the earth. They appear constantly, and gardeners are always fighting them. We cultivate the soil by tilling and enriching it. We plant our flowers and veggies, but the weeds make the most of our efforts. We believe we've got situation under control, but then we walk around to discover different things growing where we didn't expect it: knotweed sprawls down our walkways and up between our patio's paving stones.