Fiddle dock
Rumex pulcher
Family · Polygonaceae · Irritating
The dock whose lower leaf is waisted in the middle and takes exactly the shape of a fiddle, which gives it its name in every language. It is among the easiest plants in the whole family to identify.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Town and roadside · Montado
Also known asfiddle-leaved dock
How to tell it
Basal leaves shaped like a fiddle, with a clear waist in the middle. A low, much-branched, nearly prostrate plant, which separates it from the tall upright docks. Fruits with spiny teeth along the margin.
What it is confused with
Curly dock
Rumex crispus
The lower leaf's shape: fiddle here, long and wavy on curly dock. And the habit: this is low and spreading, curly dock is tall and upright.
What it is for
Young leaves cooked, like the other docks, with the same oxalate warning. It is above all a plant of trodden pasture, and its presence says that field has livestock.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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