The flowers grow in rounded clusters, often in a pendent position, from the axils of the upper leaves. They are very fragrant and secrete an abundance of nectar.
In the fall the clusters of lilac-colored flowers have been replaced by large, rough-coated seed-pods that are completely filled with the silkiest of flossy substance attached to the numerous black seeds; finally the pod bursts and liberates the seeds, each floating away on the breeze, sometimes aviating for several miles before coming to earth.
(A) Poke Milk-weed (Asclepias phytolaccoides) is a tall species growing from 2 to 6 feet in height. The flowers composing its clusters are fewer in number than those of the common milk-weed but much larger and of a clear, ivory-white color. The flower stems are long and slender so that the entire cluster is in a nodding position, it being the only one of the genus in which all the flowers are pendent. Poke Milkweed is found, usually in dry situations, along the edges of woods or along roadsides, from Me. to Minn. and southward. It flowers from June until August.
(B) Whorled Milk-weed (Asclepias verticillata) is a very slender species, common in dry woods and on prairies in the South; found north to Mass. and Saskatchewan. The stem is slender, simple, and rises from 1 to 3 feet high. The narrow linear leaves have their margins rolled under; they grow in closely clustered whorls about the stem, usually quite erect. The numerous small, greenish-white flowers grow in a round cluster or umbel at the summit of the stem. It is a very dainty species, one not apt to be confused with any other member of the family.
CONVOLVULUS FAMILY
(Convolvulaceæ)
Hedge Bindweed; Wild Morning Glory (Convolvulus sepium) climbs gracefully over walls, through thickets, or twines its stem tightly about those of other plants or shrubs.
The large funnel-shaped blossoms grow singly on slender peduncles from the axils of the leaves. The flowers remain open only during sunshine and occasionally on bright, moonlight nights. It is very commonly found in moist ground along roadsides or the borders of woods or thickets, throughout our range and also in Europe.
Common Dodder (Cuscuta Gronovii) is a very common little parasitic plant found in moist, shady thickets or among the shrubs and plants bordering ponds or streams. It germinates its seeds in the ground, and the slender stem rises until it comes in contact with some living plant, when the root dies and the Dodder gets its nourishment from its host by means of numerous little suckers. It has no leaves; the stem is orange and the clusters of minute bell-shaped flowers are white.