| Joe-Pye weeds | |
|---|---|
| Joe-Pye weed in flower | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Asterids |
| Order: | Asterales |
| Family: | Asteraceae |
| Tribe: | Eupatorieae |
| Genus: | Eutrochium Rafinesque |
| Species | |
|
E. dubium |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Eupatoriadelphus |
|
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 traditionally defined.[1] Eupatorium has recently undergone some revision and has been broken up into smaller genera.[2] Eutrochium is the senior synonym of Eupatoriadelphus.[3] Eupatorium in the revised sense (about 42 species of white-flowered plants from the temperate Northern hemisphere) is apparently a close relative of Eutrochium. Another difference between Eutrochium and Eupatorium is that the former has mostly whorled leaves and the latter mostly opposite ones.[4][5] 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.[6]
The taxa that belong to Eutrochium are:[7]
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.[8]