HORNLESS WOOLLY MILKWEED.
Gomphocarpus tomentosus, Gray. Milkweed Family.
Densely white-woolly plants, with milky juice. Stems.—One to three feet high. Leaves.—Two to four inches long. Flowers.—Several, in a pendulous cluster on yarnlike pedicels; lateral upon the stem between the leaves. Calyx.—Five-parted; inconspicuous. Corolla.—Deeply five-parted; greenish without, pinkish within. Stamens.—Five; sunk in the column and alternating with the five hoods. Hoods.—Two lines across; saccate; open down the outer face. Ovaries.—Two; pointed; capped by a flat stigma. Fruit.—A pair of follicles; with many silken-tufted seeds. Hab.—Dry hills from San Diego to Monte Diablo.
In the south by late spring the very woolly stems and foliage of this milkweed become quite noticeable before any hint of blossoms appears. The thick, gray leaves look as though they might have been cut out of heavy flannel. By May the flower-clusters begin to take definite form, and at last the buds open and reveal a most interesting flower, whose structure is quite complicated. The center of the blossom is occupied by a fleshy column, in which are sunk the anthers, and upon which are borne certain round, dark wine-colored bodies called the "hoods," which are in reality nectaries, holding honey for insect visitors. All the pollen in each anther-cell consists of a waxy mass, and the adjacent masses of different anthers are bound together by a gummy, elastic band, suspended upon the rim of the stigma. The stigma occupies the top of the fleshy column, and forms a cap, hiding from view the two tubes, or styles, leading down into the ovaries.
[HORNLESS WOOLLY MILKWEED—Gomphocarpus tomentosus.]
![[HORNLESS WOOLLY MILKWEED—Gomphocarpus tomentosus.]](#3624944100741987669_f147.png.id-5638284974379308698.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
The milkweeds of California are divided between two genera—Asclepias and Gomphocarpus,—the difference between them lying in the presence of a horn or crest rising out of the hoods in Asclepias.
Bees visiting the, blossoms of the milkweeds are said to be frequently disabled by the pollen-masses, which adhere to them in such numbers and weigh them down so heavily that they cannot climb upon their combs, but fall down and perish.