Common Buckwheat

Fagopyrum esculentum is a heterostylous, obligate out-crosser. Morphological, allozyme, and molecular data suggest that the cultivated plants are most closely related to wild ones in northwestern Yunnan, China.

Common buckwheat is an important pseudocereal crop in China, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Poland; it is grown in many other countries. It is planted frequently in wildlife food plots, as a catch or cover crop, and as a honey plant in North America. Hulls from the achenes are used for pillow filling, which manufacturers claim has health benefits over traditional foam, polyester, or down fillings.

Stems ascending or erect, green or striped with pink or red, branched, (7-)15-90 cm. Leaves: ocrea brownish hyaline, loose, funnelform, 2-8 mm, margins truncate, eciliate, glabrous or puberulent proximally; petiole 1.5-6(-9) cm, usually puberulent adaxially; blade palmately veined with 7-9 primary basal veins, hastate-triangular, sagittate-triangular, or cordate, 2.5-8 × 2-8 cm, base truncate or cordate to sagittate, margins ciliolate, apex acute to acuminate. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, paniclelike, 1-4 cm, usually crowded at stem apices; peduncle 0.5-4 cm, puberulent in lines. Pedicels ascending or recurved, 2.5-4 mm. Flowers chasmogamous, heterostylous [homostylous]; perianths creamy white to pale pink; tepals elliptic to obovate, (2.5-)3-5 mm, margins entire, apex obtuse to acute; stamens ca. 1/ 2 as long as or slightly longer than perianth; styles 1.5-2 mm or 0.5-1 mm; stigmas purplish. Achenes uniformly light brown or streaked with dark brown or black, sharply 3-gonous, 4-6 × 4-6 mm, faces smooth, angles prominent, unwinged or essentially so, smooth or occasionally with blunt tooth in proximal 1/ 3. 2n = 16 (China).

Herbs annual. Stems green or red when mature, erect, 30-90 cm tall, branched above, glabrous or papillate on one side. Petiole 1.5-5 cm; leaf blade triangular, 2.5-7 × 2-5 cm, both surfaces papillate along veins, base cordate or nearly truncate, apex acuminate; ocrea caducous, ca. 5 mm, membranous, oblique, not ciliate. Inflorescence axillary or terminal, racemose or corymbose; peduncles 2-4 cm, papillate along one side; bracts green, ovate, 2.5-3 mm, margin membranous, each 3- or 5-flowered. Pedicels longer than bracts, not articulate. Perianth pink or white; tepals elliptic, 3-4 mm. Anthers pinkish. Styles heterostylous. Achenes exceeding persistent perianth, dark brown, opaque, ovoid, sharply trigonous, 5-6 mm, surfaces flat. Fl. May-Sep, fr. Jun-Oct. 2n = 16*, 32*.

Annual, up to 1 m tall herb, glabrous or young parts rarely minutely papillose. Stem ribbed, reddish. Leaves petiolate, petiole 0.5-2 cm long, grooved lower leaves with long petiole, upper ones subsessile; lamina triangular or sagittate, cordate, basal lobes rounded to acuminate, 1.5-10 x 1-8 cm. Ochrea 2-3 (-5) mm long, hyaline, pubescent near the base. Inflorescence axillary and terminal, pedunculate, many-flowerd corymbose cyme. Flowers pink or red, pedicelled, c. 1 mm across. Perianth segments 5-partite, ovate or oblong-ovate c. 3 x 2 mm broad. Stames 8, unequal, alternating with glands, c. 1.5 mm long. Ovary 3-angled; styles 3, as long as ovary. Nuts deeply 3-angled, angles acute, brown, smooth, narrowed at both the ends, 4-8 x 2.5-5 mm broad.

C. Asia, widely cultivated.

introduced; Alta., Man., Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask., Yukon; Ala., Alaska, Ariz., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., Mont., Nebr., N.H., N.J., N.Mex., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., Oreg., Pa., R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Asia (China); introduced in Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa.

Distribution: Southern Europe, Central Asia, India, Iran and Pakistan.

1800-4100 m

Fl. Per.: June-August.

Flowering Jun-Sep; fruiting Jun-Nov.

Cultivated as crop plant, waif along railroads, roadsides, fields, waste places, occasionally weedy; 0-2200m.

This common buckwheat is widely cultivated in Pakistan and elsewhere; particularly in the higher inner valleys of Himalayas, Karakorum and Hindukush, above 1800 m. The flour is used for making breads. The young leaves are also used as vegetable. Also used as green fodder and a good honey plant.

Probably native to China, but commonly cultivated and easily escaping [cultivated in Bhutan, Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, and Sikkim; also Australia, Europe, and North America].

Polygonum fagopyrum Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 364. 1753; Fagopyrum sagittatum Gilibert; F. vulgare T. Nees

Fagopyrum emarginatum (Roth) Meisner; ?F. emarginatum var. kunawarense Meisner; F. zuogongense Q. F. Chen; Polygonum emarginatum Roth; P. fagopyrum Linnaeus.

Polygonum fagopyrum L., Sp. Pl. 364. 1753; Fagopyrum sagittatum Gilib, Exerc. Phyt. 2: 435. 1792 - nom. illegit.; Polygonum emarginatum Roth, Catalect. B. 1: 48. 1797; Fagopyrum vulgare T. Nees, Gen. Pl. Fl. Germ. Monochlam. 53. 1835.