Polygonaceae

The Polygonaceae are a family of flowering plants known informally as the knotweed family or smartweed—buckwheat family in the United States. The name is based on the genus Polygonum, and was first used by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789 in his book, Genera Plantarum. The name may refer to the many swollen nodes the stems of some species have, being derived from Greek. Alternatively, it may have a different origin, meaning 'many seeds'.

Polygonaceae

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
knotweedPBDB
Sits inside
CaryophyllalesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 48 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 232 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 232 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 3 of 232 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 7 of 232 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 59 of 232 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 23 of 232 occurrencesPleistocene — about 120 of 232 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences65–63 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences63–61 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences61–58 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences58–56 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences40–38 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 1 occurrence31–29 Mya — about 1 occurrence29–27 Mya — about 1 occurrence27–25 Mya — about 2 occurrences25–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–20 Mya — about 2 occurrences20–18 Mya — about 3 occurrences18–16 Mya — about 3 occurrences16–13 Mya — about 6 occurrences13–11 Mya — about 10 occurrences11–9.0 Mya — about 12 occurrences9.0–6.7 Mya — about 13 occurrences6.7–4.5 Mya — about 12 occurrences4.5–2.2 Mya — about 36 occurrences2.2–0 Mya — about 124 occurrences48.07 Mya11.7 ka67 Mya0 Mya

232 occurrences of Polygonaceae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

232 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

14 formations

Sanying — 26.51°N, 100.16°ESanta Maria di Ciciliano — 42.65°N, 12.49°EChiquimil — 26.83°S, 66.00°WMorwell — 38.23°S, 146.62°EYagii — 36.08°N, 139.17°EOgawa — 36.42°N, 138.08°ENorwich Crag — 52.31°N, 1.40°EMacquarie Harbor — 42.17°S, 145.36°EYallourn — 38.22°S, 146.56°EYalakdere — 40.61°N, 29.25°EYousashan — 34.80°N, 90.75°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EXiananshan — 29.15°N, 121.23°EZanda — 31.73°N, 79.56°E

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The named rock units Polygonaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 213 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Polygonaceae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Polygonaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,544 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 115 sites for Polygonaceae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

43 references

Each of the 232 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 31 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Polygonaceae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Polygonaceae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCaryophyllales through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Jussieu 1789