Background: The name Joe Pye weed is for a Native American man of the North East who used and applied the herb for its diaphoretic properties.
Description: This herbaceous, perennial, has horizontal, woody caudex, with many long, dark-brown fibers, from which sprout one or more solid, glabrous, green, sometimes purplish stems, 5 or 6 feet in height, with a purple band at the joints, about an inch broad. Leaves are to 6 in., oblong-ovate or lanceolate, pointed, feather-veined, coarsely serrate, slightly scabrous, with a soft pubescence beneath along the mid-vein and veinlets, thin, soft, on petioles 1 in.long, and from 8-12 in. long, 4 in. wide. Flowers are tubular, purple or pink-purple, to whitish, with multiple florets included in an 8-leaved calyx. Heads are in lax, dense, compound cylindrical corymbs, 4 to 5 together in the form of whorl. It grows in swamps and other low places, in dry woods and meadows.
