HEMP AGRIMONY 93 



Hemp Agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum, L.) 



Hemp Agrimony can lay good claim to being a native British 

 species if only from its discovery in Interglacial, Late Glacial, and 

 Neolithic beds. To-day it is found throughout the Temperate Northern 

 Zone in Europe, Siberia, as far east as Japan, Western Asia, as far as 

 the Himalayas, and in North Africa. In Great Britain it is not found 

 in Cardigan, Mid Lanes, Linlithgow, Stirling, Mid Perth, N. Perth, 

 N. Aberdeen, Banff, E. Sutherland, and in North Wales. 



Hemp Agrimony is usually a hygrophyte, preferring the damp 

 surroundings of a hollow near a lake or stream, often seeking further 

 the shelter and humid atmosphere of a damp copse. But it is to be 

 found in hedgerows at a distance from water occasionally, on the 

 borders of cornfields. 



This is a tall, handsome species, growing usually in clumps. The 

 stems are reddish, erect, and the leaves opposite, shortly stalked, 3- or 

 5-lobed, with lance -shaped segments which are deeply and coarsely 

 toothed. The radical leaves are stalked, the stem -leaves nearly 

 stalkless. 



The whitish -lilac flowerheads are in terminal corymbs, tufted, 

 containing few (5-6) crowded flowers. The phyllaries or involucral 

 bracts are short and blunt. The florets exceed the involucre in 

 length. The pappus or hair is roughish, white. The fruit or achene 

 is angled. 



The plant grows to a height of 3 ft. or more. It is a late-flowering 

 species, blooming in August and September. It is a deciduous, 

 herbaceous perennial, which is multiplied by division. 



The flowerhead is a capitulum of 4 or 5 or 6 florets. The tube is 

 2\ mm. long, with a wider throat or bell. Though each capitulum is 

 small, as they are numerous they together form a large head. The 

 bracts of the corolla are red -bordered, and the corolla red, with white 

 projecting stigmas. The corolla is 5 mm., and the style divided its 

 whole length, with rows of stigmatic wart-like projections along the 

 margin a quarter of the length, and for the rest clothed with hairs. 

 The anthers ripen first on the inside, and pollen fills the tube. In the 

 first stage the lower part of the branches of the style remains enclosed 

 in the cylinder formed by the anthers, which does not project beyond 

 the corolla. The ends of the style with hairs project beyond it, and 

 carry pollen with them, spreading so much that insects touch them all 

 round, and carry off on their coats pollen entangled in the hairs of the 



