MILKWEED FAMILY. Asclepiadaceae.
A large family, widely distributed, most abundant in warm regions; ours are perennial herbs, usually with milky juice and tough fibrous inner bark; leaves generally large, toothless, without stipules; flowers peculiar in shape, in roundish clusters; calyx with a short tube or none and five lobes; corolla five-lobed; stamens five, on the base of the corolla, with short, stout filaments, anthers more or less united around the disk-like stigma, which covers and unites the two short styles of the superior ovary. The two parts of the ovary develop into two conspicuous pods, opening at the side, containing numerous flattish seeds, arranged along a thick, central axis, usually each with a tuft of silky down to waft it about.
There are many kinds of Asclepias, with oddly-shaped flowers, interesting and decorative in form; calyx rather small, the pointed sepals turned back; corolla with its petals turned entirely back, so as to cover the sepals and expose the peculiar-looking central arrangements of the flower, called the "crown." In the middle is the large, flat, shield-shaped, five-lobed or five-angled stigma, surrounded by the anthers, which are more or less united to each other and to the stigma, encircled by five, odd, little honey-bearing hoods, the same color as the petals, each with a horn, either enclosed within it or projecting from it, the whole collection of stigma, anthers, and hoods, forming the "crown." The pods are thick and pointed. Named for Æsculapius, as some of these plants are medicinal. Indians used to make twine from the fibrous bark of some kinds.
Showy Milkweed
Asclèpias speciòsa
Pink
Spring, summer
West
A handsome plant, decorative in form and harmonious in coloring, with a stout stem, from one to four feet tall, and light bluish-green leaves, usually covered with white down. The flowers are sweet-scented, with woolly pedicels, purplish-pink petals, and waxy, white "hoods," the buds yellowish-pink. The cluster, about three inches across, sometimes comprises as many as fifty flowers and is very beautiful in tone, being a mass of delicately blended, warm, soft tints of pink, cream, and purple. This grows in canyon bottoms and along streams.
Showy Milkweed—Asclepias speciosa.
Pale Milkweed
Asclèpias eròsa
Greenish-white
Spring
California
This is three feet or more tall, fine-looking, though too pale, with a stout, smooth, gray-green stem and gray-green leaves, mottled with white and very stiff, the under side white-woolly, and flower-clusters two and a half inches across, composed of numerous greenish-white flowers, each half an inch long, their stalks covered with white wool.
Desert Milkweed
Asclèpias vestìta var. Mohavénsis
Yellow and pink
Spring
California