Small Water-pepper - Persicaria minor

Low to short hairless plant with sprawling or ascending stems. Leaves narrow, lanceolate, pointed, scarcely stalked. Flowers in lax slender erect spikes, deep pink, rarely white.

Persicaria hydropiper

Lacks peppery taste of P hydropiper; hairs on face of stipules (not terminal cilia) not fused to to stipule or fused <3/4 of length; other minor difference (ref key in Stace)

Records from this species should be confirmed by a County Recorder for botany.  It is on the VC55 Rare Plant Register, and therefore a specimen should not be taken.  Take detailed field photos and submit to NatureSpot as soon as possible; and if you think you have found it in a new location, inform the County Recorder as soon you can.

Damp habitats, marshy ground, lake, pond and river margins.

July to September.

Annual.

Widespread but not common in Britain.

In the Flora of Leicestershire (Primavesi and Evans 1988) it was found in 3 of the 617 tetrads, but not recorded in in the Flora of Rutland (Messenger 1971).

In the current Checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as Native, rare.  Most older records are form the Charnwood Forest area, but it has been found more recently by Rutland Water and in Lockington.   

It is listed on the current VC55 Rare Plant Register (Hall and Woodward 2022) as Locally Rare (i.e. present in less than 3 sites)