Rumex


The docks and sorrels, genus Rumex, are a genus of about 200 species of annual, biennial, and perennial herbs in the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae.
Members of this genus are very common perennial herbs with a native almost worldwide distribution, and introduced species growing in the few places where the genus is not native.
Some are nuisance weeds, but some are grown for their edible leaves.
Rumex species are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species, and are the only host plants of Lycaena rubidus.

Description

They are erect plants, usually with long taproots. The fleshy to leathery leaves form a basal rosette at the root. The basal leaves may be different from those near the inflorescence. They may or may not have stipules. Minor leaf veins occur. The leaf blade margins are entire or crenate.
The usually inconspicuous flowers are carried above the leaves in clusters. The fertile flowers are mostly hermaphrodites, or they may be functionally male or female. The flowers and seeds grow on long clusters at the top of a stalk emerging from the basal rosette; in many species, the flowers are green, but in some the flowers and their stems may be brick-red. Each seed is a three-sided achene, often with a round tubercle on one or all three sides.

Taxonomy

The genus was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. Within the family Polygonaceae, it is placed in the subfamily Polygonoideae. The genus Emex was separated from Rumex by Francisco Campderá in 1819 on the basis that it was polygamous. However, some species of Rumex subg. Acetosa also have this characteristic, and most other features that are supposed to distinguish Emex are found in species of Rumex. Accordingly, in 2015, Schuster et al. demoted Emex to a subgenus of Rumex.
Within the subfamily Polygonoideae, Rumex is placed in the tribe Rumiceae, along with the two genera Oxyria and Rheum. It is most closely related to Rheum.

Species

, Plants of the World Online accepted the following species. A large number of hybrids are also recorded.
These plants have many uses. Broad-leaved dock used to be called butter dock because its large leaves were used to wrap and conserve butter.
Rumex hymenosepalus has been cultivated in the Southwestern US as a source of tannin, for use in leather tanning, while leaves and stems are used for a mordant-free mustard-colored dye.
These plants are edible. The leaves of most species contain oxalic acid and tannin, and many have astringent and slightly purgative qualities. Some species with particularly high levels of oxalic acid are called sorrels, and some of these are grown as leaf vegetables or garden herbs for their acidic taste.
In Western Europe, dock leaves are a traditional remedy for the sting of nettles, and suitable larger docks often grow conveniently in similar habitats to the common nettle.
In traditional Austrian medicine, R. alpinus leaves and roots have been used internally for treatment of viral infections.
Rumex nepalensis is also has a variety of medicinal uses in the Greater Himalayas, including Sikkim in Northeastern India.

Fossil record

Several fossil fruits of Rumex sp. have been described from middle Miocene strata of the Fasterholt area near Silkeborg in Central Jutland, Denmark.
One fossil fruit of a Rumex species has been extracted from a borehole sample of the Middle Miocene fresh water deposits in Nowy Sacz Basin, West Carpathians, Poland. This fossil fruit is similar to the fruits of the extant species Rumex maritimus and Rumex ucranicus which both have fossil records from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Europe.

Nutrition

Nutrition information is shown in the infobox on the right.