Like most things that used to pop up in my garden unexpectedly, the green giant I would eventually come to know as boneset was once cause for deep suspicion.
Its leaves were nondescript and thin, signaling a tenuous grasp on its circumstances. Among the zinnias and sunflowers and voluptuous native phloxes, this plant looked out of place at best and, on its worst days, like the lost soul at the seventh grade dance.
Whether inspired by some deep empathy for that feeling of not belonging or just a growing recognition that nothing is ever what it seems—or maybe a little of both—I decided to let it grow. And grow. And grow some more.
Until one day, my mystery plant finally bloomed. It was toward the end of a hot summer, when all the bright stars of the garden were waning and the tiny pollinators were running out of dining options. A composite flower, the species offered what so many others can’t: a last delicious stop on the breeding and migration highway.
Mostly the plant seemed to attract tiny bees and wasps, seemingly hundreds at a time. Within a few years, it made its presence known in almost every cultivated plot on our property—not so much in an intrusive way but rather in a manner that said, “I’m here, somebody loves me, and I don’t care what you think anymore.”
Once I’d identified the species as Eupatorium serotinum and Eupatorium perfolatium (I’m pretty sure we have both), I began to realize this was a rebel with a cause. As is too often the case with our natives, even its nicknames—boneset, thoroughwort, feverwort—were ill-fitting of its beauty and life-sustaining properties.
Perhaps these monikers made sense when the leaves were used to treat dengue fever. But now? They cast the species as so much litter on the side of the highway instead of a critical late summer and fall food for bees, wasps and butterflies. The plant is even a favorite of blue-winged wasps (scolia dubia), who keep Japanese beetles in check by laying eggs in the beetles’ larvae.
You’ve probably never heard that about this plant. In fact, you’ve probably never heard of this plant at all. And that’s because boneset has a branding problem. Attractive to some of the most stunning insects on the continent, it has an undiscovered inner beauty and a breathtaking appearance. But it is largely ignored.
Things may be looking up for this wild wallflower, though. Last spring at a favorite native plant center, Herring Run Nursery in Baltimore, I was heartened to hear someone approach a volunteer to say, “Excuse me, do you have any boneset?” Just before she was whisked away to the aisle of all things cultivated and appropriate, I invited the woman to my house, only half-jokingly, to dig up some of the many volunteer bonesets that had spread throughout the property.
And I would have followed through on the offer, had my fellow native plant enthusiast not done what most people do when confronted by something outside convention: laughed nervously without really looking at me and moved on, following the guide to the place where she could comfortably purchase a native plant in a plastic pot and go home. I can’t say I blame her. But I wish it were different. And I’ll keep trying to make it so by letting things bloom where they’ve planted themselves and inviting others to join, even at the risk of being a nerdy boneset in a field of zinnia-laden glam.
