2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Bone sap (lat. Eupatorium) - a genus of perennial flowering plants, ranked in the Asteraceae family (lat. Asteraceae). Tall species are used in landscape design as a natural screen for outbuildings. Some poisonous species are used in metered quantities by traditional healers and official medicine. Large tall bushes of plants are very decorative and inspire respect for themselves with their massiveness. Plants of the genus are native to the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
What's in your name
The genus owes its Latin name "Eupatorium" to the last king of the independent Pontic kingdom named Mithridates VI Evpator Dionysus, who became famous in the II-I centuries BC. According to legend, Mithridates Eupator used the abilities of some species of plants of this genus, able to suppress the action of snake venom, which in those distant times was a popular means of eliminating rivals. For the sake of possession of power, mothers killed their husbands, their own children, a brother killed a brother … In general, those were terrible times.
According to one of the versions, the genus owes the Russian name "Poskonnik" to the external resemblance of its plants to the male individual of the Hemp plant, which has a personal name - "Poskon".
Plants have many popular names. In English-speaking countries it is called: "Bonesets" (skeleton), "Thoroughworts" (Puzachi), "Snakeroots" (Snake roots).
Description
Most of the plants of the genus are perennial herbaceous plants with a height of half a meter to three meters. Some of them are shrubs.
Strong erect stems often do not like to branch and are covered with hairy pubescence and leaves. The shape, size and structure of leaves can vary greatly from species to species. As a rule, large leaves are located on powerful stems, which can be petiolate or sessile. On the stem, the leaves are arranged in the next order, or form picturesque whorls of a cupped shape. The shape of the leaves is very different: heart-shaped with a serrated edge; linear with a rounded end or spear-lanceolate; ovoid or rhombic. The leaf plate is often whole, but it can also be pinnately dissected or palmate-lobed. The surface of the leaf blade varies from smooth to rough or pubescent with hairs.
Lush paniculate inflorescence is collected from smaller panicles, formed by small flowers and sticking out in different directions from the top of the stem on long pedicels. The shape of the flowers is outwardly different from the usual inflorescences-baskets of the Astrov family, but retains the traditional elements of the Astrov, that is, it has asexual petals, sometimes very narrow, filiform, and a core of bisexual flowers. The color of the petals can be white, pink, lilac-purple in various shades.
Varieties
Quite numerous genus, in the ranks of which in different classification systems there are from 36 to 60 species. Here are a few of them:
* White stethoscope (lat. Eupatorium album)
* High bone sap (lat. Eupatorium altissimum)
* Stem sap without petiolate (lat. Eupatorium perfoliatum)
* Hemp sap (lat. Eupatorium cannabinum)
* Chinese stethoscope (lat. Eupatorium chinense)
* Round-leaved stethoscope (lat. Eupatorium rotundifolium)
* Linear-leaved stethoscope (lat. Eupatorium linearifolium).
Usage
Tall types of Bone Stem are very popular with European landscape designers when arranging gardens in a natural style, where powerful and tall plants play the role of a vertical dominant. Against their background, the orange-yellow tongues of Buzulnik, golden baskets of Rudbeckia with a brown central eye, yellow-eyed sunny Gelenium look great. In addition, with the help of several such bushes, you can close unsightly outbuildings, a fence, and a compost heap from prying eyes.
The healing abilities of some species, for example, Hemp Bone Bone (Latin Eupatorium cannabinum), are used by traditional healers and official medicine.
