ALL PREORDER SPECIES ARE STILL GROWING IN OUR GREENHOUSE - Please note all orders containing preorder species will be held until all plants in your order are ready to pickup or ship. If you would like available plants sooner please make two separate orders.
Light
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Full, Partial
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Moisture
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Medium-Wet to Medium-Dry
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Bloom
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Late Summer to Early Fall
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Color
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White
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Height
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4 FT
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Tall boneset is an herbaceous perennial in the aster family that prefers to grow in full to partial sunlight and average to dry soils. It spreads slowly through rhizomes and can be fairly competitive in its optimum conditions. This plant has a handsome, upright habit, producing four foot stems that are unbranched except at the very top where it flowers. The stems are covered in oppositely-arranged, hairy, lance-shaped leaves about two to five inches in length. The leaves are toothed towards the tip and have three prominent parallel veins. In late summer to fall, tall boneset produces broad, flattened clusters of small, tubular, white to cream flowers. The nectar of these flowers attracts a diverse cast of insects including bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, skippers, beetles, and plant bugs. Following the flowers are small brown seeds which are topped with fuzzy hair and distributed by wind. Although this plant is typically avoided by mammalian herbivores, its various parts are enjoyed by the caterpillars of multiple species such as the Clymene moth, lined ruby tiger moth, Eupatorium borer moth, and three-lined flower moth.
The genus Eupatorium is named after Mithradidates VI Eupator who ruled the Kingdom Pontus from 120 to 63 BC and who purportedly discovered the medicinal value of bonesets. The misleading specific epithet “altissimum” means tallest, though there are multiple species of boneset that grow taller than this one. This species is an apomictic polyploid, meaning it reproduces asexually and contains more than two sets of chromosomes.
