Pockets Of Light:
Pier 68

Plant

Hollow Joe-Pye Weed
Eutrochium fistulosum

Ecology

Hollow Joe-Pye weed is the largest of the Joe-Pyes, reaching up to 9 feet in height! It can grow in pretty much any type of soil, or even gravel, as long as it gets lots of moisture. So it’s great for rain gardens—and the hole in Pier 68 that’s inundated twice a day by the tide! The Joe-Pye weed growing here was not planted during the creation of this park—it simply established itself naturally in this suitable habitat along the Delaware River. This feat isn’t too difficult for a plant whose seeds have long bristles that are perfect for catching the wind and being spread to new areas.

Joe-Pye weeds are hugely attractive to butterflies. Skippers and long-tongued bees also visit the flowers, and several species of moths lay eggs on it, which grow into caterpillars that eat the leaves. Swamp sparrows, American goldfinches, Carolina wrens, and dark-eyed juncos eat the seeds. Mammals, however, generally dislike the bitter taste of Joe-Pye weed, only eating it if nothing else is available.

Can you find any other interesting plants in the hole on Pier 68? Other natives that have colonized this habitat on their own include swamp milkweed, cattail, and arrow arum.

Indigenous Uses

While there don’t appear to be any indigenous uses recorded for this particular species of Joe-Pye weed, there are dozens of uses recorded for the other varieties in the same genus, amongst the Algonquin, Cherokee, Chippewa, Iroquois, Mahuna, Menominee, Meskwaki, Navajo, Potawatomi, and Rappahannock peoples. Some recorded uses include as a gynecological, venereal, kidney, urinary, gastrointestinal, and liver aid, and as a remedy for gout, colds, stomach gas, tuberculosis, gonorrhea, poison, burns, and fevers. The Cherokee also used the stems of one Joe-Pye weed species as a straw and as a breath-powered medicine applicator—so the hollow Joe-Pye weed surely would have worked for those purposes as well. Two final uses: the flowers were used by the Potawatomi as a good luck charm when gambling, and the roots were used to create a salty seasoning by the Cherokee. What a plant!

Symbolism

No symbolism for Joe-Pye weed is recorded by a reputable source. The Victorians (the champions of floral symbolism) must not have been fans!

One Last Thought

You may be wondering: who was Joe Pye? For more than a century, various sources repeated a vague story that Joe Pye was a Native American medicine man, but the lack of evidence caused many people to doubt that this claim was completely true. But in 2017, two researchers managed to establish, quite definitively, that this group of plants was indeed most likely named after Joseph Shauquethqueat, a Mohican sachem (or chief) who lived in the late 18th to early 19th century. He lived in Mohican communities in Massachusetts and New York, had medicinal knowledge, and sometimes used the last name Pye!

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