Joe-Pye Weed Traditional Cache

Joe-Pye Weed is across the road from the cache, beyond a ditch. Other flowers there include Boneset, Tall Meadow Rue and Goldenrods.

Joe-Pye weed

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.

The genus Eupatorium comprises about 40 species of mostly perennial, chiefly tropical herbs and shrubs. The genus name honors Mithradates VI Eupator, king of Pontus (an ancient country in northern Anatolia in Asia Minor), who died in 63 b.c. The king is remembered among botanists and toxicologists for having been “one of the first to study intensively the art of poisoning and the preparation of antidotes.” He is said to have immunized himself against poison by taking increasingly large, nonlethal doses. One plant he experimented with is supposed to have been a member of the genus.

Joe Pye (Jopi in the Native tongue), 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.

Eutrochium purpureum kidney-root, sweetscented joe pye weed, sweet Joe-Pye weed, gravel root, or trumpet weed is a herbaceous perennial plant in the sunflower family. It is native to eastern and central North America, from Ontario east to New Hampshire and south as far as Florida, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

Eutrochium purpureum is a clump forming herb that grows to 1.5–2.4 meters (4.9–7.9 ft) tall and about 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) wide. Plants are found in full sun to part shade in moisture retentive to wet soils. Stems 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 flowers are produced in large loose, convex shaped compound corymbiform arrays. Plants bloom mid to late summer and attract much activity from insects that feed on the nectar 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.

Eutrochium purpureum is sometimes cultivated and has escaped from cultivation in parts of New Zealand.

The tied in, camoed cache is a "micro" pill bottle. Push hard both to open and close. It holds a rolled log with a rubber band, all in a plastic bag to keep it dry. Please BYOP and No tweezers. I know, you know how to keep track of it all, so you can put it back as found.Thanks.