COMPOSITAE 



COMPOSITE FAMILY 



JOE PYE WEED 



Eupatorium purpurcum 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. 



The stem grows 3- 

 10 feet high, is 

 usually unbranched 

 except in the inflor- 

 escence, 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 2-^- 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 ^ 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 — Louis Untermeyer 



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