Plant · P-737

Meadowsweet

Filipendula ulmaria

Meadowsweet is an upright herbaceous perennial with clusters of fragrant cream-white flowers, native to Europe and temperate Asia and now established across the eastern United States. Its leaves and flowering stems are one of the original botanical sources of salicylic acid - the compound aspirin is named after its old genus, Spiraea - and have long been used to settle the stomach and calm diarrhea. All parts are edible: the root is cooked, young leaves flavor soups and teas, and the flowers scent alcoholic drinks and potpourri. It needs consistently moist to wet ground and spreads there on its own, by rhizome and by seed that floats downstream.