My first thought it is exactly like Hemp Agrimony, Eupatorium cannabium and of course it is from the same species, a wild plant I used to grow for butterflies. Less flashy I admit but doing the same job and no it has nothing to do with hemp or cannabis, just happens to look alike.
Grigson says 'a plant of no very strong personality or appeal, though mile after mile of roadside will be filled with the raspberry and cream of its flower'. He has no taste it is a very pretty plant, not seen any in Yorkshire as I have also not seen that lover of walls down South the red valerian which decorates the old walls of Weston Park in Bath so beautifully.
That plant is lovely. I do not recall ever seeing one but maybe I have.
ReplyDeleteIt is tall and needs to be at the back of the border.
DeleteI haven't seen this plant before Thelma, but there is no shortage of red valerian up here - I love it when it just grows out of gaps in the walls. The white valerian seems much less common.
ReplyDeleteWell not much valerian round here, it is at its most happiest in a little soil with its back against a wall.....
DeleteHere in Vermont your plant is known as Joe Pye Weed and is certainly one of my favorites, along with its relative Boneset. They grow wild in damp meadows and along side open stream areas. The butterflies love them.
ReplyDeleteWelcome, what this tells me that hemp agrimony was imported here early on. The first mention in 1694 says of it 'Tis chiefly used for an ill habit of body' and seems a cure-all catch-all.
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