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iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image

Rosaceae family

Churchsteeples Agrimonia eupatoria

Also known as: Agrimony · Medicinal Agrimony

Churchsteeples is an introduced perennial herb, found in the lower 48 states. It grows to 1.6 ft.

More about this plant

Agrimonia eupatoria is a species of agrimony that is often referred to as common agrimony, church steeples or sticklewort. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY

Conditions

Sources · Conditions

Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness

Hardiness: ≥ zone 5 derived from its U.S. range

Size & form

Sources · Size & form

TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage

USDA PLANTS — Lifespan

McKenzie et al. 2025 — community-science image analysis (MIT) — Flower colour

Height: 1.6 ft
Lifespan: Perennial
Foliage: Broadleaf
Flower colour: Yellow AI AI image-analysis of community-science photos (~87% expert agreement) — not a botanical record

In the garden

Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →

Chop-and-drop biomass — Soft, low-density wood is quick-growing and easy to cut back — coppice it and drop the trimmings in place as mulch.Open guide →

derived roles

AI = read by an AI vision model · DERIVED = a computed estimate, not a direct measurement. The “How we know this” section below details each.

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →

❧ Caterpillar hosts ~1 caterpillar species

Agrimonia supports ~1 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a modest genus.

Recorded feeding on Agrimonia in North America, including:

Anacampsis agrimoniella · twirler moth ✦ Tischeria agrimoniella

Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0). ✦ = recorded on this exact species.

✦ Bees 53 bee visitors

53 native & managed bee species are documented visiting Churchsteeples — the 12 most-recorded:

Lasioglossum calceatum · sweat bee

Lasioglossum glabriusculum · sweat bee

Bombus lapidarius · bumble bee Hylaeus brevicornis · masked bee

Lasioglossum interruptum · sweat bee

Apis mellifera · Honey Bee

+ 6 more bees →

Bombus pascuorum · Common Carder Bumblebee

Halictus subauratus · sweat bee

Hylaeus confusus · masked bee Lasioglossum fulvicorne · sweat bee Lasioglossum lineare · sweat bee Lasioglossum majus · sweat bee

Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →

Wildlife & visitors 1 mammal · 2 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Churchsteeples — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Recorded eaten by 1 mammal species (fruit, seed, browse):

Myodes glareolus · Bank Vole

2 adult butterfly & moth species are recorded nectaring at its flowers:

Pyrausta purpuralis

Aphantopus hyperantus · Ringlet

Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).

Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.

How we know this (3) Methods & honest limits

Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.

Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).

Flower colour Derived

McKenzie et al. assigned each species a flower colour with a GPT-4V vision model over iNaturalist photos. We use the confident tier plus a separately-labelled lower-confidence top-up (mostly inconspicuous green/brown flowers), and render it as a small tint — never as an asserted fact, and kept out of the written synopsis.

Honest limits: AI image inference (~87% expert agreement on the confident tier); a decorative, confidence-tiered indicator, not a measured trait.

McKenzie, P., Berardi, A.E., Hopkins, R. (2025). flower_color_phenology (MIT).

Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →

Sources for this entry (24) Open & cited

[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)

[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)

[06] Photos — iNaturalist — CC, credited per image

[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)

[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts

[09] Foliage — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[10] Height — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[11] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[12] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[13] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones

[14] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)

[15] Flower colour — McKenzie et al. 2025 — community-science image analysis (MIT)

[16] Mycorrhiza — FungalRoot v2.0 · Meng et al. 2024 (Dryad, CC0)

[17] Chromosomes — ChromoDB — IAPT/IOPB chromosome data series (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0)

[18] Human uses — Dr. Duke's Phytochemical & Ethnobotanical Databases (USDA, CC0)

[19] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)

[20] Bee visitors — Noori et al. 2026 (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0) · via GloBI

[21] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI

[22] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts

[23] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)

[24] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county

Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.

Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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Ecological value open data

1 / 5 Keystone

Keystone (host) value — caterpillar, specialist-bee & monarch hosting. A low number means “not a keystone host,” not “low value”: generalist flower-visitor value is shown separately below and in Bees & wildlife.

Caterpillar host 1

Flower-visitor value derived 5

Recorded flower-visitor breadth — observations, not a nectar measurement. open data

⚠ non-native — reduced keystone value

Deep dive

Caterpillar host · 1/5 — native butterfly & moth caterpillars that feed on this genus — the base of the food web (more caterpillars → more songbirds). Genus-level keystone count from Warren II 2026 (CC0; Tallamy host-use records), gap-filled by our GloBI derivation.

Counts are genus-level and banded 0–5. Full rubric →

Host / keystone value from open interaction data. How this is scored →

📍 In your area live

Introduced to the U.S.

Recorded in 10 states.

Open occurrence records place it in 4 counties across 4 states · GBIF (CC0/CC-BY)

Introduced — Conterminous United States

Recorded in 10 states/territories

Conservation

Invasive? Introduced

Toxicity & pet safety

Check the ASPCA pet database →

Educational, not veterinary advice. If you suspect your pet ate this plant, contact a vet or pet poison-control line.

Documented human uses Dr. Duke's

Medicinal use 39 use-records

Historically recorded for

AstringentCancerDiureticEmmenagogueTonicVermifugeCholagogueDepurativeEnuresisVulneraryCardiotonicCoagulantEnterorrhagiaGastrorrhagiaHematuriaHemostat +6 more

A historical record of how this plant has been used — not medical or dietary advice, and not a claim that it is effective or safe. Many plants are toxic; never ingest or treat with a wild plant without expert guidance and a confirmed identification. Dr. Duke's →

Functional traits TRY · Dryad

Wood density very low

0.25 g/cm³

light, fast wood — quick biomass for chop-and-drop mulch

Seed mass small

7 mg

small seed — straightforward to sow

Leaf nitrogen average

16.5 mg/g

leaf nitrogen — a rough guide to compost/mulch value

Leaf build thin & fast

Thin & fast

thin, low-cost leaves — a fast, light-hungry build built for quick growth (measured leaf area per weight 18.3 mm²/mg)

Leaf size medium

Medium

mid-sized leaves (measured leaf area ~46 cm²)

Mycorrhiza obligate

Arbuscular (AM)

partners with arbuscular fungi — the commonest symbiosis; helps reach phosphorus & water, aiding drought resilience

Chromosomes cytotype variation

2n = 22, 28

several cytotypes on record (2n = 22, 28) — a polyploid complex; ploidy varies between populations, which often tracks with adaptability and spread

Deep dive — what these mean

Wood density 0.25 g/cm³ — how heavy the wood is for its size. Denser wood = hotter, longer-burning firewood and tougher poles; lighter wood rots fast (quick mulch).

Seed mass 7 mg — average weight of one seed. Bigger seeds are easier to hand-collect & direct-sow; dust-fine seeds need surface-sowing.

Leaf nitrogen 16.5 mg/g — measured leaf N. Higher = richer prunings for compost/mulch (a measured stand-in for "dynamic accumulator" claims).

Leaf build — how thick & tough the leaves are. Thin, lightweight leaves grow fast and crave light; thick, tough leaves last longer and shrug off shade, drought & grazing. (measured leaf area per dry weight, 18.3 mm²/mg)

Photosynthesis — the standard “C3” pathway most plants use, most active in cooler, moister, moderate-light conditions. (pathway C3)

Mycorrhiza AM — the root–fungus partnership it forms (AM = most plants; ECM = most forest trees; ERM = heaths; NM = none). Trades sugars for water & nutrients via shared soil networks.

Measured traits from TRY + Werner et al. (N-fix), Fan et al. (roots) & FungalRoot — general guidance, not species-specific prescriptions.

More modules coming

Churchsteeples Agrimonia eupatoria

Growing & care

Wildlife & pollinators

Agrimonia supports ~1 caterpillar species.

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