Eutrochium


Eutrochium is a North American genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the sunflower family. They are commonly referred to as Joe-Pye weeds. They are native to the United States and Canada, and have non-dissected foliage and pigmented flowers.
The genus includes all the purple-flowering North American species of the genus Eupatorium as traditionally defined. Eupatorium has recently undergone some revision and has been broken up into smaller genera. Eutrochium is the senior synonym of Eupatoriadelphus. Eupatorium in the revised sense is apparently a close relative of Eutrochium. Another difference between Eutrochium and Eupatorium is that the former has mostly leaves and the latter mostly opposite ones. Eupatorium and Eutrochium are both placed in the subtribe Eupatoriinae, but South American plants which have sometimes been placed in that subtribe, such as Stomatanthes, seem to belong elsewhere in the tribe Eupatorieae.
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Joe Pye, an Indian healer from New England, used E. purpureum to treat a variety of ailments, which led to the name Joe-Pye weed for these plants.
Folklore says that Joe Pye used this plant to cure fevers. Folklore also states that American colonists used this plant to treat typhus outbreaks. The author Hemmerly writes that the Indians used Joe Pye Weed in the treatment of kidney stones and other urinary tract ailments.
A peer-reviewed study suggests that Joe Pye of plant fame was a Mohican sachem named Schauquethqueat who lived in the mission town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts from 1740 to c. 1785 and who took as his Christian name, Joseph Pye.
pollinating Joe-Pye weed