Images: ©Jouko Lehmuskallio
Hemp-agrimony
Eupatorium cannabinum
- Written also: Hemp Agrimony
- Family: Daisy Family – Asteraceae (Compositae)
- Growing form: Perennial herb.
- Height: 40–150 cm (ca. 15–60 in.)
- Flower: Small flowers (florets) grouped together into flower-like heads (capitula), ca. 5 mm (0.2 in.) across, usu. with 5–6 florets. Corolla of 5 fused petals, tubular, pink to purple. Sepals modified into a ring of hairs (a pappus). Stamens 5, anthers united into a tube around the style. Pistil of 2 fused carpels, style solitary, stigma two-lobed. Capitulum subtended by 2 rows of involucral bracts with rounded tip and membranous margins. Capitula borne in corymbose clusters.
- Leaves: Opposite. Short-stalked. Blade trifoliolate, leaflets narrowly elliptic, with sharp-toothed margins, short-stalked.
- Fruit: A greyish-brown, 5edged cypsela crowned by a pappus of unbranched hairs.
- Habitat: Flooded lakeshores, damp broadleaf woods, lush scrub.
- Flowering time: July–September.
The bitter-tasting hemp-agrimony is a perennial with a reddish-brown, unbranched stem. In Finland it is a fairly rare species of damp waterside habitats. Its leaves are similar to those of hemp (Cannabis sativa), hence the common English name and the specific epithet in the scientific name. The genus Eupatorium differs from most other genera in the daisy family in having opposite leaves and rather few (3–16) florets in each capitula. The hemp-agrimony was formerly used as a medicinal herb, e.g. against freckles. The hemp-agrimony is a regionally endangered species.
