Commemorating Gabriel Fallopio (1523–63), physician from Modena, Italy who taught and wrote about botany at Padua University.
Annual or perennial sometimes twining herbs. Leaves ovate, deltoid or arrow-head shaped, sometimes with jointed stalks. Sheaths shortly tubular, pale brown, soon shed. Flowers bisexual or functionally unisexual with inoperative parts of other sex usually remaining. Perianth segments 5(6), more or less petal-like, outer three with ridge on back, the outer 3 sometimes enlarging in fruit. Stamens 8; summer to autumn. Nut 3-angled.
The naturalised F. convolvulus (L.) Á. Löve, Black Bindweed, native to Eurasia is a widespread weed with a seed that causes enteritis in stock.
Plants with rhizomes and robust annual stems; outer perianth segments winged in fruit.
About 24 species from temperate northern hemisphere and Asia.
Source: (1997). Polygonaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
