Home / Plants / Grow / Japanese knotweed

Japanese knotweed

Polygonum japonicum (Fallopia japonica) (accepted: Reynoutria japonica) · Polygonaceae · all Polygonum records · syn. Fallopia japonica, Polygonum cuspidatum

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
1 condition stated in cited fire-evidence rows.
Fire ecology context
No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Global; eastern US; north-eastern and mid-Atlantic United States
Maintenance
No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
Typed publication scope: 1 scope across 1 cited fire source
  • Combustion characteristics of north-eastern USA vegetation tested in the cone calorimeter · Official scoped edition
    • Northeastern and mid-Atlantic study sites (ME, MD, MA, NY, VA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2007-08-20

      The authors collected foliage and twigs across study sites in Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia, then conditioned and tested the samples in a cone calorimeter. FireApproved publishes 37 exact source owners only as multi-state laboratory context. The source does not establish that every taxon was sampled in every named state, whole-plant behavior, landscape suitability, or state planting guidance.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AK, AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV.
Native range
No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established
No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
3 legal-list records; set a location to match exact scope.
Seed-list status
Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here
No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context
Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context
Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
Plant-specific legal-list reviews (1)

These source-bound review receipts are separate from ecological invasive reports. A source or plant identity change invalidates a receipt.

Plant-specific state seed-list reviews (1)

These source-bound receipts answer only the July 2026 state noxious-weed seed-list question. They do not establish non-seed plant legal status, ecological invasion, nursery-sale rules, or unrestricted use.

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Japanese knotweed (Polygonum japonicum (Fallopia japonica))
Photo: (c) 黃美滿, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.
Form
shrub
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable source rows; no primary zone projected
Mature height
~8 ft
Light
Full sun
Grows in
AK, AR, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA +34
Rated in
Global; eastern US; north-eastern and mid-Atlantic United States
Family
Polygonaceae
Evidence
3 cited sources

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Conditions in the fire evidence

These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (1)

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Listed without a rating (1)

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

Fire-resistant shrubs listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata ·

Polygonum japonicum (Fallopia japonica) (Japanese knotweed). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/polygonum-japonicum-fallopia-japonica/. Last verified 2026-08-23.