''Eutrochium purpureum'', commonly known as purple Joe-Pye weed or sweetscented joe pye weed, is an herbaceous

perennial plant A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

in the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae ...

. It is native to eastern and central North America, from

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

east to

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

and south as far as

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...

, and Oklahoma.

Description

''Eutrochium purpureum'' is a clump-forming herb that grows to tall and about wide. Plants are found in full sun to part shade in mesic to wet soils.

Stem Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushr ...

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 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.

Taxonomy

''Eutrochium purpureum'' shows a high amount of variability, and up to two or three varieties are currently recognized by current botanical authorities. They differ based in leaf shape, leaf pubescence, and achene glandularity. The precise delineation of these varieties is difficult due to integration between them. The commonly recognized varieties are: *''Eutrochium purpureum'' var. ''carolinianum''- Southeastern Piedmont *''Eutrochium purpureum'' var. ''holzingeri''- Midwestern *''Eutrochium purpureum'' var. ''purpureum''- Widespread in eastern North America This species hybridizes readily with other species of ''

Eutrochium ''Eutrochium'' is a North American genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. 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 flowe ...

'' and where this species and those species overlap in distribution the resulting plants can be difficult to resolve to a specific

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

Ecology

Many species of butterflies, moths, bees, and flies visit the flowers. It is larval host to the eupatorium borer moth (''Carmenta bassiformis''), the red groundling moth (''Perigea xanthioides''), the ruby tiger moth (''Phragmatobia fuliginosa''), and the three-lined flower moth (''Schinia trifascia''). The larvae of '' Calycomyza flavinotum'', a

leaf miner A leaf miner is any one of numerous species of insects in which the larval stage lives in, and eats, the leaf tissue of plants. The vast majority of leaf-mining insects are moths ( Lepidoptera), sawflies (Symphyta, the mother clade of wasp ...

fly, create blotch-shaped mines on the leaves.

Cultivation

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

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q19848832, from2=Q2716731 purpureum Flora of the Northeastern United States Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Flora of the Southeastern United States Flora of the North-Central United States Flora of Eastern Canada Flora without expected TNC conservation status