Persicaria hydropiper

Waterpepper, Waterpepper

Family: Polygonaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Waterpepper is a naturalized annual found in northern and central California Floristic Province in shores of lakes, ponds, riverbanks, forested wetlands, pastures, and disturbed ground at elevations below 1,500 meters. Flowering from May to December, this plant produces green-white or pink flowers in small clusters with reddish margins. Growing 20 to 60 centimeters tall with ascending to erect stems that are gland-dotted, it forms dense patches with lanceolate leaves. Its leaves have distinctive ocrea (sheaths) 8 to 15 millimeters long, brown and cylindric, with truncate margins and short bristles. The fruit is small, lens-shaped, and brown-black, measuring 2 to 3 millimeters long.

Habitat: Shores of lakes, ponds, riverbanks, forested wetlands, pastures, disturbed ground

Bloom period: May-Dec

Elevation: < 1500 m

Bioregions: n&ampc CA-FP

California counties: Sonoma, Amador, Calaveras, Lake, Marin, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Trinity, Tuolumne, Butte, El Dorado, Humboldt, Inyo, Mendocino, Nevada, Plumas, Shasta, Siskiyou, Glenn, Tehama, Solano, San Joaquin, Yuba, Los Angeles, Stanislaus, Santa Clara, Yolo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.