Polygonaceae Rumex patientia

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Family Name

Polygonaceae

Common Name

Patience dock, garden patience

Description

Rumex patientia is a perennial herbaceous plant growing 50 to 150 cm tall from a thick, often reddish, creeping rootstock. Stems are erect, smooth to sparsely hairy. Leaves are alternate, broadly ovate to lanceolate, typically 15 to 40 cm long and 7 to 15 cm wide, with entire to slightly wavy margins and a pointed tip. Basal leaves have long petioles 10 to 20 cm in length; upper leaves are smaller and more lanceolate with shorter or no petioles. Leaf surfaces are smooth or sparsely hairy. The inflorescence is a large, loose panicle of many small flowers blooming from June to August. Flowers have greenish to reddish-brown tepals, usually three to six in number, each 3 to 5 mm long and 1 to 2 mm wide, lanceolate to ovate, with the inner tepals often bearing a tubercle or spine-like tip. Each flower contains six stamens with filaments about 3 to 4 mm long and yellowish anthers approximately 1 to 2 mm long. Pistils number three per flower, each slender and about 4 to 5 mm long, with styles bifid at the tip. Fruits are triangular, three-sided achenes approximately 4 to 6 mm long, dark brown at maturity. Patience dock  is native to Eurasia but cultivated and naturalized in South Dakota, commonly found in gardens, disturbed sites, roadsides, and moist open fields , scattered and occasional throughout the state.

Additional Notes

Patience dock  leaves are edible when young and used as a cooked green in some culinary traditions. Traditionally used in folk medicine for digestive issues.