Eupatorium chinense

Eupatorium chinense is a perennial herb of the daisy family (Asteraceae) native to China, Japan, Korea and parts of Southeast Asia, where it grows in thickets, grassy slopes, woodland margins and along streams in hilly country. It develops erect, branching stems up to about a metre or more tall arising from a woody rootstock, bearing opposite, ovate to lanceolate leaves with toothed margins that may be undivided or shallowly three-lobed and are roughened with short hairs. The small flower heads are crowded into flat-topped to rounded terminal clusters (corymbs); each head contains only a few tubular disc florets, white to pinkish or pale purple, with conspicuously protruding styles giving the inflorescence a soft, feathery look, as is characteristic of the boneset and thoroughwort group. The fruits are small ribbed achenes topped by a pappus of fine bristles for wind dispersal. It flowers from late summer into autumn and is one of several Asian Eupatorium species valued in regional herbal medicine.