Weed du Jour - Joe Pye Weed

Joe Pye Weed.  Who was Joe Pye, and why does he have a weed named after him?  According to this article, he was a legendary herb doctor in New England, possibly Native American:

According to legend, he was a colonial New England herb doctor -- some say a Native American -- who was very skillful in making potions from wild plants to treat a variety of ailments. Known as a “yarb man,” his specialty was reducing fevers.

He was especially fond of using a group of robust, closely related late-summer wildflowers to treat ailments such as diarrhea, kidney stones and fever. The plants came to be called Joe-Pye weeds, making Pye one of just a handful of herb doctors to have a plant named in his honor. He supposedly gained fame when he used a Joe-Pye weed to stop a typhus epidemic.

Joe Pye Weed is common in ditches and wet areas around here.  The one in my pictures is one we collected from our "wild lots" in back and put up into our "butterfly garden".  In addition to the soft purple flowers, it has an interesting growth form, long canes from the perennial rootstock, with whorls of 6 or more leaves at intervals up the cane.  It is very attractive to butterflys and other pollinating insects.

This picture was taken a before Irene, since then the flowers have browned out more, and the leaves are a bit more tattered.