Tasteless Water-pepper (Persicaria mitis)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vascular plant > flowering plant > Herbaceous plant |
| Red List Status: | Vulnerable (Not Relevant) [VU(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Persicaria mitis |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Schrank) Assenov |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | in Stroh et al., 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | An annual herb of wet places, occurring on wet mud exposed by drawdown in late summer, Persicaria mitis was assessed as VU in the England Red List due to a decline in distribution of >30%. Approximately 94% of the population is in England. Populations have been lost through the regulation of water levels, the fencing of ditches, and the filling-in of ponds, notably in grazing marshes, although the latter threat is probably more historical than current. As a dynamic species, it is difficult to assess trends over time, and it is also very similar to P. minor, which might have led to under- (or over-) recording. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | No |
| Justification: | This annual species requires ephemeral drawdown zone habitats for germination and fruiting. At some locations it also requires light poaching to promote germination from a buried seed bank. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Potentially, this species could exploit drawdown zones along river corridors that are linked to extant sites for this species, and also disperse to new wetland restoration areas. The restoration of ghost ponds as part of landscape recovery may also benefit this species. |
Species Assessment
Not relevant as no Key Actions defined.
Key Actions
No Key Actions Defined
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.