COMPOSITAE COMPOSITE FAMILY 
JOE PYE WEED 
Eupatorium purpureum L. 
The Joe Pye Weed is said to have received its name from the 
fact that an Indian named Joe Pye used it a great deal in medi- 
cine. It is common in moist soil from New Brunswick to Manitoba, 
south to Florida and 
Texas. The bloom- 
ing season is August 
and September. 
ge 6% 
TM) Ki 
Nn KY 
The stem grows 3- 
eo feet high, 1s 
usually unbranched 
except in the inflor- 
sscence, and is green 
or purple or some- 
times spotted with 
the two colors. It is 
sometimes entirely 
smooth but often 
more or less hairy. 
The leaves are in 
whorls of 3-6. They 
are smooth or some- 
what hairy on the 
lower surface along the veins. 
The heads are very numerous in a com- 
pound panicle. Below them is a cylindrical 
involucre whose bracts are pinkish or purple and arranged in 4 
or 5 series of unequal length, the outer being shorter. The recep- 
tacle is flat and naked. There are 3-15 flowers in each head, each 
having a 5-toothed tubular corolla which varies from pale pink 
to purple or occasionally whitish. The akenes are 5-angled and 
the pappus consists of a single row of slightly roughened, slender 
bristles. This species is probably pollinated mostly by butterflies, 
although it is visited also by various kinds of bees. 
Names—they blossom into colored hills; 
Hills whose rousing beauty flows to me... 
And with all its soundless, purple trumpets, 
Lo, the Joe Pye Weed still blows to me! 
Joe Pye Weed—Lovuis UNTERMEYER 
337 
