PaperMaking from Plants:
Pennsylvania Smartweed Paper

I cooked freshly gathered (August 2003)smartweed, the whole plant , from flower head to root, for about 4 hours. It has a "bast" which I squooshed off vs. continuing to cook the tough inner stems. I stopped cooking when most of it seemed done, only to discover this inner and outer. However this wasn't true of all the stems, just of the larger plants.

I'm saving the tough inners, it may be the larger summer hardened ones take more effort.

I blender processed them. Wow, what a surprise at all the fiber it contained! The color is a dark brown, like knotweed or cattail head papers.

Polygonum pensylvanicum L.
Pennsylvania smartweed
Symbol: POPE2
Group: Dicot
Family: Polygonaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb Duration: Annual

U.S. Nativity: Native

Subkingdom Tracheobionta - Vascular plants
Superdivision Spermatophyta - Seed plants

Division Magnoliophyta - Flowering plants
Class Magnoliopsida - Dicotyledons

Subclass Caryophyllidae -
Order Polygonales -

Family Polygonaceae - Buckwheat family
Genus Polygonum L. - knotweed

Species Polygonum pensylvanicum L. - Pennsylvania smartweed

Info from USDA-NRCS. 2003. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov/plants). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

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