Mile-a-minute Weed (EwA Guide to Common Invasive Species in Middlesex County (MA, US) )

Mile-a-minute Weed

Persicaria perfoliata

Summary ⁴

Persicaria perfoliata (basionym Polygonum perfoliatum) is a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family. Common names include mile-a-minute, devil's tail, giant climbing tearthumb, and Asiatic tearthumb. It is a trailing herbaceous annual vine with barbed stems and triangular leaves. It is native to most of temperate and tropical eastern Asia, occurring from eastern Russia and Japan in the north, and the range extending to the Philippines and India in the south. P. perfoliata is an aggressive, highly invasive weed.

Short Description ⁵

A trailing annual vine that prefers warm, open areas. tI has reddish stems that hold downward pointing hooks also present on the underside of triangular alternate cup-shaped leaves. The vine has small, usually inconspicuous white flowers.

Source: EwA Invasive Pocket Fieldguide | © Earthwise Aware

Description ⁶

Persicaria perfoliata has a reddish stem that is armed with downward pointing hooks or barbs which are also present on the underside of the leaf blades. The light green leaves are shaped like an equilateral (equal-sided) triangle and alternate along the narrow, delicate stems. Distinctive circular, cup-shaped leafy structures, called ochreas, surround the stem at intervals. Flower buds, and later flowers and fruits, emerge from within the ocreas. Flowers are small, white and generally inconspicuous. The edible fruits are attractive, metallic blue and segmented, each segment containing a single glossy, black or reddish-black seed.

HabitatPersicaria perfoliata prefers warm open areas, along the edges of woods, wetlands, stream banks, and roadsides, and uncultivated open fields, resulting from both natural and human causes, dense wooded areas where the overstory has opened up increasing the sunlight to the forest floor. Natural areas such as stream banks, parks, open space, road shoulders, forest edges and fence lines are all typical areas to find P. perfoliata. It also occurs in environments that are extremely wet with poor soil structure.

Available light and soil moisture are both integral to the successful colonization of this species. It will tolerate shade for a part of the day, but needs a good percentage, 63-100% of the available light. The ability of P. perfoliata to attach to other plants with its recurved barbs and climb over the plants to reach an area of high light intensity is a key to its survival. It can survive in areas with relatively low soil moisture, but demonstrates a preference for high soil moisture.

Invasiveness ⁶

The first records of Persicaria perfoliata in North America are from Portland, Oregon (1890), and Beltsville, Maryland (1937). Both of these sites were eliminated or did not establish permanent populations of the species. However, the introduction of P. perfoliata somewhere between the late 1930s and 1946 to a nursery site in Stewartstown, York County, Pennsylvania, produced a population of this plant that did become established in the wild. It is speculated that the seed was spread with Rhododendron stock. Starting in 2004, the weevil Rhinoncomimus latipes has been introduced in eastern US to control this plant, with certain amount of success.

🚧 Control Methods (EwA Content Development in Progress) ⁵

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Sources and Credits

(c) Claire O'Neill, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Claire O'Neill, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/136974487
(c) Claire O'Neill, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Claire O'Neill, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/136974490
(c) Ale E, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Ale E, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/119802466
(c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persicaria_perfoliata
(c) Claire O'Neill, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)
Adapted by Claire O'Neill from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persicaria_perfoliata

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