Eupatorium purpureum
Encyclopedia
Eutrochium purpureum Kidney-root, Sweetscented Joe-Pie weed, Sweet Joe-Pye weed
, or Trumpet weed is a herbaceous perennial plant
native to eastern and central North America
.
E. Purpureum is a clump forming plant that grows to 1.5 – 2.4 meters (5 – 8 feet) tall and about 1.2 meters (4 ft) wide. Plants are found in full sun to part shade in moisture retentive to wet soils. Stem
s are upright, thick, round, and purple, with whorls of leaves at each node. As the plant begins to bloom the stems often bend downward under the weight of the flowers. The leaves grow to 30 cm (12 in) long and have a somewhat wrinkled texture. The purplish colored flowers are produced in large loose, convex shaped compound corymbiform arrays. Plants bloom mid to late summer and attract a lot of activity from insects that feed on the nector produced by the flowers. This species hybridizes readily with other species of Eutrochium
and where this species and those species overlap in distribution the resulting plants can be difficult to resolve to a specific taxon
. There are two varieties that differ in the pubescence of the stems and foliage, but many more have been proposed in the past, thought most authorities now accept that this is a variable species and population variations integrate.
E. purpureum is sometimes cultivated and has escaped from cultivation in parts of New Zealand.
Joe-Pye weed
Eutrochium fistulosum , also called Joe-Pye weed, Trumpetweed, or Purple thoroughwort, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to eastern North America, in southeast Canada and throughout the eastern and central United States.It is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 1.5-3 m ...
, or Trumpet weed is a herbaceous perennial plant
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...
native to eastern and central North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
.
E. Purpureum is a clump forming plant that grows to 1.5 – 2.4 meters (5 – 8 feet) tall and about 1.2 meters (4 ft) wide. Plants are found in full sun to part shade in moisture retentive to wet soils. Stem
Plant stem
A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant. The stem is normally divided into nodes and internodes, the nodes hold buds which grow into one or more leaves, inflorescence , conifer cones, roots, other stems etc. The internodes distance one node from another...
s are upright, thick, round, and purple, with whorls of leaves at each node. As the plant begins to bloom the stems often bend downward under the weight of the flowers. The leaves grow to 30 cm (12 in) long and have a somewhat wrinkled texture. The purplish colored flowers are produced in large loose, convex shaped compound corymbiform arrays. Plants bloom mid to late summer and attract a lot of activity from insects that feed on the nector produced by the flowers. This species hybridizes readily with other species of Eutrochium
Eutrochium
Eutrochium is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in Asteraceae. They are commonly referred to as Joe-Pye weeds. They are native to Eastern North America and have non-dissected foliage and pigmented flowers. It includes all the purple flowering North American species of the genus Eupatorium as...
and where this species and those species overlap in distribution the resulting plants can be difficult to resolve to a specific taxon
Taxon
|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement...
. There are two varieties that differ in the pubescence of the stems and foliage, but many more have been proposed in the past, thought most authorities now accept that this is a variable species and population variations integrate.
E. purpureum is sometimes cultivated and has escaped from cultivation in parts of New Zealand.