Sometimes even peaceful gardeners have violent thoughts, and occasionally those thoughts are not even about white-tailed deer. A situation involving a friend of mine is a case in point. Under normal circumstances, I am not sure she would even kill a spider in the bathroom. Last week though, she stood in the middle of her back garden almost shouting, “I want to kill them—every last one of them. I hate them!”
At the time, she was practically on top of “them” and truth be told, they weren’t even remotely afraid of her. They were, of course, white-flowered eupatorium or ageratina, cousins to the currently-fashionable Joe Pye Weed and relatives of the lovely blue annual and perennial ageratum. I might add that these eupatorium are poor relations, since no one has ever written rhapsodically about them. In fact, most people, when first observing the vast quantities of white-flowered eupatorium that pop up everywhere in fall, simply refer to the plant as “what-is-that-thing.”
Eupatorium sometimes go by the old-fashioned name “thoroughwort.” “Wort” means “plant,’ but “thorough” in this instance does not mean “complete.” In earlier times, “thorough” was synonymous with “through.” In at least one white eupatorium species, boneset or Eupatorium perfoliatum, the stems appear to pierce through pairs of opposed leaves that are joined at the bases. The thoroughwort name stuck to the whole genus.
Everyone has seen these particular garden invaders. They appear every year in early fall, brandishing clusters of fuzzy-looking white flowers atop stems that can be anywhere from one to three or more feet tall. There are many white-flowered species out there, all of which are closely related and so similar in appearance that even botanists sometimes find it hard to tell them apart. I am fairly sure that the ones in my neighborhood are white snakeroot, known botanically as Ageratina rugosum, or by its older botanical name, Eupatorium rugosum. They feature the usual flat-topped clusters of fuzzy white flowers set off by opposed, heart-shaped green leaves that are serrate or toothed. Unlike boneset, the leaves are not joined.
As might be expected of something with such a slithery common name, white snakeroot has a dark side. A toxic alcohol compound manufactured by the plant can be deadly to foraging animals like horses, cows and sheep. Ingesting milk from animals that have fed on snakeroot can also be dangerous for humans, causing a malady that used to be called “milk sickness.” Abraham Lincoln’s mother reputedly died of the ailment.
White snakeroot is a woodland edge or shaded steam side plant. In my garden, it pops up from underneath the privet hedge, hiding itself until it bursts into bloom, silently defying me to crawl under the hedge and pull it out. I can report with absolute certainty that none of the local herbivores or omnivores, including rabbits and groundhogs, eat, or even pay the slightest attention to white snakeroot.
I use white snakeroot as filler in flower arrangements, in much the same way that florists use gypsophilia. It works well and lasts in the vase. Generally when I pick flowering stems for arrangements, I also pull the entire plant out by the roots. This fills the vase and gets rid of a garden trespasser in one easy step. Left to its own devices, white snakeroot produces thousands of tiny seeds, which seem to have a propensity for landing in places that are hard to reach. Once reached, the plants are shallow-rooted and fairly easy to pull up. The hardest part is getting up from the awkward position required to give the plant a good yank.
Why does white snake root and its kin get so little respect when its relative, purple-flowered Joe Pye-weed, is a media darling? Neither looks like much out of bloom and both have the same voracious self-seeding tendencies. As members of the daisy or Compositae family, they are equally beloved by pollinators, who pay no attention to horticultural fashion. Maybe it has to do with snakeroot’s history of toxicity or the fact that purple flowers seem to interest people more than white. For whatever reason, most of us cut back our Joe Pye-weeds with regret and yank out our white snakeroot with satisfaction. Maybe snakeroot just needs a better publicist.