For Your Garden - November 2016

Native plants provide beauty as well as food and shelter for wildlife. Native species are adapted to the Illinois climate. They require little or no watering and are resistant to drought, insects and most diseases. Because they are perennials, you can welcome their presence year after year.

spotted Joe-pye-weed (Eutrochium maculatum)

Spotted Joe-pye-weed grows throughout Illinois, although it is common only in the northern one-half of the state. It can be found in marshes and fens. This plant may attain a height of two to seven feet. Its leaves are arranged in whorls around the stem with four or five leaves per whorl. The stem is speckled with purple or is mostly purple. Flowers are produced from June through October. The flowers are violet and have five petals. They develop in a flat-topped cluster at the stem tip. Both disk and ray flowers are present. The one-seeded fruit is dry and hard. The flowers of this species provide food for many pollinators.

Classification and taxonomy are based on Mohlenbrock, Robert H. 2014. Vascular flora of Illinois: A field guide. Fourth edition. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale. 536 pp.

​Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae