Curly Dock

Polygonaceae

LIFE FORM: Perennial

NATIVITY: Europe

VEGETATIVE CHARACTERISTICS:

Plant produces rosettes of leaves up to a foot long with wavy margins and a long, stout taproot that is difficult to remove.

FLOWERS:

Greenish flowers are produced on a stalk that can be up to 3 feet tall.

FRUIT/DISPERSAL AGENTS:

Conspicuous flower stalks turn brown at maturity and produce papery brown seeds that are dispersed by wind or water.

ECOLOGICAL PREFERENCE:

Plant grow best on moist, heavy soils in full sun. Prefers neglected residential and commercial landscapes; minimally maintained public parks and open space; vacant lots and rubble dump sites; abandoned grasslands (meadows); woodlands that develop on abandoned open space; unmowed highway banks and median strips with frequent salt applications; railroad tracks with ballast substrate.

ENVIRONMENTAL FUNCTION:

Disturbance-adapted colonizer.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:

Used in European folk medicine; easily recognized by its brown flower stalks which persist through the winter. Listed by John Josselyn in New-England’s Rarities, published in 1672, under the category: “Of such plants as have sprung up since the English planted and kept cattle in New England.”