Previously grown as Persicaria bistorta (10/12/20) (fda)

Plants of the World online, Kew Science http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:60430545-2 Link

Culpeper: “... taken inwardly resist pestilence and poison, helps ruptures, and bruises, stays fluxes, vomiting and immoderate flowing of the terms in women, helps inflammations and soreness of the mouth, and fastens loose teeth, being bruised and boiled in white wine and the mouth washed with it.”

Culpeper, Nicholas. (1650). A Physical Directory . London, Peter Cole.

In modern herbal medicine it is still used for a similar wide variety of internal conditions, but it can also be cooked and eaten as a vegetable. The use to relieve toothache, applied as a paste to the affected tooth, seems to have been widespread.

Oakeley, Dr. H. F. . (2013). The Gardens of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis. Link

Africa, Northern Africa

Asia-Temperate

Asia-Tropical, Indian Subcontinent, Pakistan

Europe

Europe, Northern Europe, Great Britain