Common Milkweed

Common Milkweed

Common Milkweed Ascleplas syriaca is a stout plant that has a thick white milky juice. Some milkweeds are poisonous to cattle but the Common Milkweed has little or no toxicity. It has broad paired leaves that are the favourite food of Monarch Butterfly larvae which are distasteful to birds probably because of their diet of milkweed. The dusty pink flowers are in large drooping clusters and the seed pods are filled with flat golden-brown seeds each attached to soft silky fuzz that helps in dispersal by the wind. [CH] {GW}