Polygonum

Polygonum is a genus of about 130 species of flowering plants in the buckwheat and knotweed family Polygonaceae. Common names include knotweed and knotgrass. In the Middle English glossary of herbs Alphita, it was known as ars-smerte. There have been various opinions about how broadly the genus should be defined. For example, buckwheat has sometimes been included in the genus as Polygonum fagopyrum. Former genera such as Polygonella have been subsumed into Polygonum; other genera have been split off.

Polygonum

Dalgial · 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
Sits inside
PolygonaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 27 million years on record.

The record covers at least 27.3 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 0 Mya.

Eocene — about 0 of 110 occurrencesOligocene — about 4 of 110 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 39 of 110 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 13 of 110 occurrencesPleistocene — about 44 of 110 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences20–18 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 2 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 3 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 3 occurrences12–10 Mya — about 4 occurrences10–9.2 Mya — about 5 occurrences9.2–8.1 Mya — about 5 occurrences8.1–6.9 Mya — about 5 occurrences6.9–5.8 Mya — about 5 occurrences5.8–4.6 Mya — about 3 occurrences4.6–3.5 Mya — about 3 occurrences3.5–2.3 Mya — about 12 occurrences2.3–1.2 Mya — about 14 occurrences1.2–0 Mya — about 37 occurrences27.3 Mya11.7 ka34.6 Mya0 Mya

110 occurrences of Polygonum 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

110 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

7 formations

Sanying — 26.51°N, 100.16°ENorwich Crag — 52.31°N, 1.40°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 Polygonum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 102 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Polygonum and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Polygonum and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,218 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 58 sites for Polygonum, and this reads all of them. 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

24 references

Each of the 110 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. 12 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 Polygonum

Credit
Dalgial
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itPolygonaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1753