The species was first described, as Polygonum persicaria, by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.[12] It was first successfully transferred to the genus Persicaria by Samuel Frederick Gray in 1821, under the name Persicaria maculosa.[13] The name "Persicaria persicaria" cannot be used because tautonyms – binomial names that use the same word for both the genus and the species epithet – are prohibited by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, and a replacement name (nomen novum) must be used.[14] For this reason the transfer of the species to Persicaria by John Kunkel Small in 1903, which used the tautonym, is invalid.[15]