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Boneset
Eupatorium perfoliatum
We earlier met the genus Eupatorium when we
looked at trumpetweed as our
Species of the Week. This genus is in the Sunflower Family, Asteraceae,
in which plants usually have flowers in heads with a central cluster
of tubular disc flowers, surrounded by a sunburst of ray flowers, as
seen in sunflowers or daisies. Like trumpetweed, though,
boneset has all disc
flowers. In boneset, the flowers are white, while they were
pink-purple in trumpetweed and other joe-pye weeds. Boneset is
distinctive among the members of the genus as its leaves are in
pairs opposite each other on the stem, and the leaves in each pair
are fused together to make a single, two pointed leaf with the stem
poking through the middle. You can see this distinctive leaf
arrangement in both pictures. The species name, in fact,
means, "through the leaf." The genus name, as we saw earlier,
honors King Mithridates Eupator of Pontus, who reigned over a
century before Christ.
Boneset has long been used as a home remedy. A
bitter tea made from the plant was used, and likely is still used in
some areas, to treat colds, fevers, and agues (recurrent fevers).
The plant is also known as agueweed. The name boneset would
seem to imply that it was used to treat broken bones, but this is
not correct. Instead, the name comes from its use in treating
"break-bone fevers," fevers so bad that the patient is thrown into
paroxysms which can break bones. |
