Problem solved: Joella Paradis, this is your plant

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I was waiting for a computer to boot up at work when something caught my eye.

Maybe it was the pink puff of the flower pressed between plastic and cardboard.

Maybe it was the green leaves peeking through a scattering of newspapers.

Maybe it was the taped-on note that began with “Attention.”

If the first two didn’t get me, the last one did.

So I started reading.

What Is It column, you show pictures of items and ask people to identify it. I found this plant and no one knows what it is.

Well, that was like waving a red flag at a bull.

I picked up the package, looked over the pressed plant, then read the most pertinent part of the note.

These plants are about 3 feet tall and the flower is the color of wild fireweed. I’ve never seen it before, but the color of the blossom is what made me stop and check it out.

MPBN had a show about invasive plants, and I wonder if this would be such a plant.

Can you help me to identify this plant?

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Joella Paradis

I sat there, looking at the plant and thought to myself, “I know this plant.”

But like anything you try to remember, you can’t.

I looked at it for another few seconds and then started to edit a story.

About five minutes later, the word “filipendula” popped into my head.

And it’s just not a popping kind of word.

Then along came “rubrum,” which didn’t feel quite right but it was making sense to me.

I piped up to ask if anyone knew anything about this package from Joella Paradis in Fort Kent and was answered by a co-worker who is a gardener, too.

Everyone was stumped, she said. To which I replied that I knew this plant because I was certain I had a clump in my yard (which solved how I knew this plant).

Queen of the prairie, I told her.

I didn’t mention the filipendula, because I always think I have the wrong Latin name, not to mention the wrong pronunciation.

My co-worker got on the Internet, typed in Queen of the prairie and turned to tell me I was right.

“It’s …,” she began and I joined her, “Filipendula rubra.”

My rubra came out rubrum, but no one can be right all the time.

Before I contacted Joella, I wanted to learn more about this plant she’d found and discovered a few surprises.

The Filipendula genus is small with only 10 species. With one exception, they all thrive in damp habitats in northern temperate regions in North America, Europe, Japan, northwest China, Mongolia and Russia.

The name comes from the Latin “filum” meaning thread and “pendulus” meaning drooping. It refers to some of the species in the genus whose rhizomatous roots look to be strung together with thread.

The filipendula in question, F. rubra, is native to the eastern United States. The Web site for the Conservation Commission of Missouri lists F. rubra as an endangered species in that state where it is found in four counties in small wetlands called fens.

Another Midwest state, Illinois, lists F. rubra among its threatened species.

Other Web sites and plant catalogs list Queen of the prairie as rare. It is easy to grow, however, with the only requirement that it be planted in moist soil – even boggy areas – which would explain why mine isn’t thriving. It will tolerate full sun to partial shade. You can start it from seed if you can find a supplier or you can purchase plants.

I got in touch with Joella last week to tell her what the plant was and to ask a few questions.

It seems she was just driving along up there in The County when she saw a large clump of these plants by the road. There were about 50 or so, she said, with nothing else growing among them, which prompted her concern that it was an invasive plant.

I was pleased to put that worry to rest.

She went along to camp and wondered who could figure out what this plant was. She tried someone at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, but he was stumped by it, she told me. Then she decided to mail her sample to the Bangor Daily News, where I just happened across it one Sunday afternoon.

After I talked to Joella, I did a little more reading and found that some species in the Filipendula genus have more than just aesthetic value; they were used medicinally as well.

Filipendula ulmaria, a close relative of F. rubra and commonly called meadowsweet or Queen of the meadow, was used as an astringent, although it is best known as being the original source of salicylic acid, the main ingredient in aspirin, which was first extracted from its flowers more than 150 years ago.

In my “Taylor’s Guide to Herbs,” I discovered that a leaf tea of F. rubra is used in modern Europe as an antacid. Because F. rubra’s roots are rich in tannin, it’s used as an astringent in folk remedies for bleeding, diarrhea and dysentery.

Wow, a plant to treat dysentery, growing right there by a road in Fort Kent.

What do you think of that, Joella?

Janine Pineo is a NEWS systems editor. Her e-mail is jpineo@bangordailynews.net.