Who was Joe Pye? Read on …
Wondering where the common name for Empatorium purpureum originated. I found this. Quote:
The first known use of the term Joe Pye as a common name for a plant was in 1818. Joe Pye appeared in Manual of Botany, for the Northern and Middle States of America: 2nd edition, a widely distributed publication authored by the famous New England geologist and botanist, Amos Eaton. Eaton directly stated that Joe Pye is taken from the “name of an Indian,” not a white man posing as one. He understood that the use of the plant was that of a diaphoretic (sweat inducer) in western Massachusetts—not in Salem on the eastern seaboard as the Joe Pye legend of today states.
I hope you hate auto-correct as much as I do. I wish there was a way to disable it.
Very interesting history!