Flower for the Day Fall Boneset 10-31-25

Fall boneset (Eupetorium perfoliatum) is a North American native perennial in the aster family. It is also called

ague weed, feverwort, and sweating plant. In herbal medicine it is a diaphoretic  or an agent to cause sweating. It was introduced to American colonists by natives who used the plant for breaking fevers by means of heavy sweating.  The name "boneset" comes from the use of the plant to treat dengue fever, which is also called "break-bone fever."

Eupatorium perfoliatum grows up to three feet tall, with opposite, serrate leaves that clasp the stems (perfoliate).The stem is hairy. It produces dense clusters of tiny white flower heads held above the foliage. 

Syncopations

Lines in this poem want

to wail and sail, loud as wood

frogs, forage deep into

stanzas of bonesets

the rhythm syncopated

as sprawling as a

trailing arbutus, flower

and language divine, summer

scrawls, palimpsests, traces

Plymouth gentians, syllabics

seven pink pronouncements.

Kathleen Kremlins