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Northeast Wetland Flora

Field Office Guide to Plant Species

Clustered Dock
Rumex conglomeratus Murray

JPG -- Species Photo JPG -- Distribution Map

Family: Smartweed (Polygonaceae)
Flowering: June-July
Field Marks: The valves of the fruits of this species are toothless, each valve bears a tubercle, and each valve is only about 1/16 inch wide, just barely wider than the tubercle.
Habitat: Wet ditches, shores, disturbed areas.
Habit: Perennial herb from a thickened root.
Stems: Upright, usually branched, smooth, usually grooved, up to 5 feet tall.
Leaves: Alternate, simple, oblong to narrowly oblong-ovate, smooth, usually without teeth but sometimes wavy-edged, more or less pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, with the sheath ascending up and around the stem at the junction of the leaf stalk.
Flowers: Many borne in slender, ascending racemes up to 6 inches long, interspersed with leafy bracts; flowers short-stalked.
Sepals: 6, free from each other, the outer 3 appressed, the inner 3 larger, oblong, up to 1/8 inch long.
Petals: 0.
Stamens: 6.
Pistils: Ovary superior, smooth; stigmas 3.
Fruits: Triangular, surrounded by 3 valves (the inner sepals), each valve oblong, up to 1/6 inch long, up to 1/16 inch wide, not toothed, bearing a tubercle almost as wide as the valve.
Notes: This species has been introduced from Europe.

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URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/plants/florane/species/8/rumecong.htm
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Page Last Modified: Thursday, 03-Aug-2006 11:39:25 EDT
Menlo Park, CA [caww55]