Japanese knotweed

It was easy to identify if our plant that we were investigating was Japanese Knotweed. The leaves were a major factor to help identify of the plant was in fact Japanese Knotweed. The leaves of the Japanese Knotweed are very specific. They are a large spade-like shape, with a pointed top and smooth edges. The leaves were about the size of a small hand. Several are on one stem, and the flowers dangle below them or rest of the top of the leaves.

Another thing that helped us identify that the plant was Japanese Knotweed was the stem of the plant. The stem was hollow, and looked like bamboo. It had swollen joints that were solid on the inside to keep the stem from collapsing. We found pieces of the branches on the ground and looked inside of them, they were hollow, except for the joints. We also found a kind of nest inside one of the sticks. It looked like there was pieces of dried grass in it that a bug might of built.

The flowers on the plant were also helpful to our investigation. The were small, almost too tiny to see the details. They are white with small petals and are scattered all around the branches and leaves. They either droop down or lay across the stem of the knotweed or lay on the leaves. The flowers were just as useful as the leaves and the stem. The giant knotweed and Japanese knotweed are difficult to tell apart, so we used the flowers as guides. The giant knotweed flowers are all drooping down, and the length of the stem is longer, but on Japanese knotweed, some flowers stick up and aren’t as long.