Asclepias syriaca
Asclepias syriaca, commonly called common milkweed, butterfly flower, silkweed, silky swallow-wort, and Virginia silkweed, is a species of flowering plant. It is in the genus Asclepias, the milkweeds. This species is native to southern Canada and of much of the conterminous eastern U.S., east of the Rocky Mountains, excluding the drier parts of the prairies. It grows in sandy soils and other kinds of soils in sunny areas. It was one of the earliest North American species described in Jacques-Philippe Cornut's 1635 work Canadensium Plantarum Historia. The specific name was reused by Linnaeus due to Cornut's confusion with a species from Asia Minor.
Description
Common milkweed is a clonal perennial herb growing up to tall. Its ramets grow from rhizomes. All parts of common milkweed plants produce white latex when broken. The simple leaves are opposite or sometimes whorled; broad ovate-lanceolate; up to long and broad, usually with entire, undulate margins and reddish main veins. They have very short petioles and velvety undersides.The highly fragrant, nectariferous flowers vary from white through pinkish and purplish and occur in umbellate cymes. Individual flowers are about in diameter, each with five cornate hoods and five pollinia. The seeds, each with long, white flossy hairs, occur in large follicles. Fruit production from selfing is rare. In three study plots, outcrossed flowers had an average of about 11% fruit set.
Ecology
Many kinds of insects visit A. syriaca flowers, and some kinds pollinate them, including Apis mellifera and Bombus spp.. In the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region, the introduced A. mellifera was the most effective and most important diurnal pollinator with regard to both pollen removal and pollen deposition. However, when considering the self-incompatibility of A. syriaca, A. mellifera was not the most important pollinator because of its high self-pollination rate compared to Bombus spp. Additionally, the rate of self-pollination increased more rapidly with the number of flowers per inflorescence in A. mellifera than in native Bombus spp.Many insect species feed on common milkweed, including the red milkweed beetle, large milkweed bug, small milkweed bug, milkweed aphid, milkweed leaf beetle, milkweed stem weevil, milkweed tiger moth and monarch butterfly. Monarch larvae consume only milkweeds, and monarch populations may decline when milkweeds are eliminated with herbicides.
Efforts to increase monarch butterfly populations by establishing butterfly gardens require particular attention to the butterfly's food preferences and population cycles, as well to the conditions needed to propagate milkweed. For example, in the Washington, D.C. area and in the northeastern United States, monarchs prefer to reproduce on A. syriaca, especially on young, soft leaves. As monarch reproduction in that area peaks in late summer when A. syriaca leaves are old and tough, the plant needs to be cut back to assure that it will be regrowing rapidly and producing young leaves when monarch reproduction reaches its peak. In the Washington, D.C. area one can have such leaves in July, August, and early September during the main oviposition period in three ways. First, one can grow seedlings. Second, one can cut large shoots to about half their height in June and July before or after they bloom. Third, one can cut large shoots to the ground in June and July. Cut plants often produce new shoots from their rhizomes. It is advisable to let some large, mature shoots remain in summer and fall because large monarch larvae, milkweed tiger moth larvae, and other native species feed on mature leaves. Milkweed bugs commonly feed on follicles. Monarch larvae can consume small seedlings to the ground. To save seedlings, one can transfer larvae from seedlings to larger shoots.
Deforestation due to European settlement may have expanded the range and density of common milkweed. This plant can become invasive; it is naturalized in several areas outside of its native range, including Oregon and parts of Europe. However, in the last three decades mostly in the United States, milkweed populations have diminished dramatically due to factors such as increased habitat loss due to development, roadside median mowing, and herbicide use. Subsequently, this has played a significant part in the monarch butterfly's 90% population decline since the 1990 peak of 1B migrators as the milkweed can no longer survive among the corn and soybean rows.
Cultivation
Monarch Watch provides information on rearing monarchs and their host plants. Asclepias syriaca seeds require a period of cold treatment before they will germinate.Plant A. syriaca or its seeds in a sunny location with good drainage and moist soil. The species spreads by both cloning from rhizomes and by sprouting from seeds. Plants start to spread by both methods within a few years.
Female monarchs frequently lay their eggs on small, tender shoots, and larvae favor such shoots as food. As monarch reproduction peaks in late summer when A. syriaca leaves are usually old and tough, cut back the plants in June - August to assure that they will produce new shoots at that time. Retain some mature plants that will later distribute their seeds and whose leaves will feed rhizomes that will produce next year's shoots.
The nonnative Aphis nerii can become abundant on milkweed shoots and stunt them.
Human uses
The plant's latex contains large quantities of glycosides, making the leaves and follicles toxic to sheep and other large mammals, and potentially humans. The young shoots, young leaves, flower buds and immature fruits are all edible raw.Concerns about milkweed bitterness and toxicity can be traced back to Euell Gibbons, author of Stalking the Wild Asparagus. It is theorized that Gibbons inadvertently prepared common dogbane, a poisonous somewhat similar-looking plant instead. He devised a method to remove the bitterness and toxicity by plunging the young shoots into boiling water and cooking for one minute, repeating the procedure at least three times to make the plant safe to eat. Gibbons' method was copied from book to book, dominating edible plants literature for forty years. Most modern foragers consider the bitterness and toxicity issue a myth. The plants have no bitterness when tasted raw, and can be cooked like asparagus, with no special processing.
Failed attempts have been made to exploit rubber and fiber production from the plant industrially. The fluffy seed hairs have been used as the traditional background for mounted butterflies and other insects. The compressed floss has a beautiful silk-like sheen. The plant has also been explored for commercial use of its bast fiber which is both strong and soft. U. S. Department of Agriculture studies in the 1890s and 1940s found that common milkweed has more potential for commercial processing than any other indigenous bast fiber plant, with estimated yields as high as hemp and quality as good as flax. Both the bast fiber and the floss were used historically by Native Americans for cordage and textiles. Milkweed has also been cultivated commercially to be used as insulation in winter coats.