“Joe Pye” is said to have been the name of an Indian who cured typhus fever in New England by means of this plant. The tiny trumpet-shaped blossoms which make up the flower-heads may have suggested the other common name.
Pink Knotweed.
Polygonum Pennsylvanicum. Buckwheat Family.
One to four feet high. Stem.—Branching. Leaves.—Alternate, lance-shaped. Flowers.—Bright pink, growing in thick, short, erect spikes. Calyx.—Mostly five-parted, the divisions petal-like, pink. Corolla.—None. Stamens.—Usually eight. Pistil.—One, with a two-cleft style.
In late summer this plant can hardly escape notice. Its erect pink spikes direct attention to some neglected corner in the garden or brighten the fields and roadsides. The rosy divisions of the calyx persist till after the fruit has formed, pressing closely against the dark seed-vessel within.
Sand Knotweed.
Polygonella articulata. (Formerly Polygonum articulatum.) Buckwheat Family.
Erect, branching, four to twelve inches high. Leaves.—Linear, inconspicuous. Flowers.—Rose-color, nodding, in very slender racemes. Calyx.—Five-parted. Corolla.—None. Stamens.—Eight. Pistil.—One, with three styles.
Under date of September 26th, Thoreau writes: “The Polygonum articulatum, giving a rosy tinge to Jenny’s desert, is very interesting now, with its slender dense racemes of rose-tinted flowers, apparently without leaves, rising cleanly out of the sand. It looks warm and brave, a foot or more high, and mingled with deciduous blue curls. It is much divided, with many spreading, slender-racemed branches, with inconspicuous linear leaves, reminding me, both by its form and its colors, of a peach-orchard in blossom, especially when the sunlight falls on it; minute rose-tinted flowers that brave the frosts, and advance the summer into fall, warming with their color sandy hill-sides and deserts, like the glow of evening reflected on the sand, apparently all flower and no leaf. Rising apparently with clean bare stems from the sand, it spreads out into this graceful head of slender, rosy racemes, wisp-like. This little desert of less than an acre blushes with it.”
Note.—The Moss Pink, Phlox subulata, with purple-pink flowers, and Phlox glaberrima, with pink or whitish flowers, will be found in the Blue and Purple section (p. [235]). The Mountain Laurel (p. [57]) and the American Rhododendron (p. [60]) are frequently found bearing pink flowers. At times it has been difficult to determine whether certain flowers should be described in the Pink or in the Purple section. The reader should bear this in mind, consulting both in dubious cases.