Try to pull up a small-sized plant. Dig one up and notice the underground part.
Note the size of the largest plant seen, also the size of the leaves, and how they are arranged to prevent overshadowing.
Break off a leaf and note the white sticky juice, whence the name "milkweed". Discuss this milk as a protection to the plant.
Note time of first and last flowering of the plant and the colour and odour of the flowers. Watch insects gathering honey on a bright day. Note the little sacks of pollen that cling to their feet. They sometimes get their feet caught in little slits in the flower and perish.
After the flowers disappear, note the forming of the little boat-shaped pods in pairs. Select one that is ripe and notice that it bursts along one side which is most protected. Open a pod carefully and notice how beautifully the flat, brown seeds are arranged in overlapping rows and how each seed has a large tuft of silky down that serves to carry it far away in the wind. This silk-like down is sometimes used to stuff cushions, and because of it the plant is sometimes called silk weed.
One species of butterfly in particular feeds upon this plant—the monarch, or milkweed, butterfly. This is one of the few butterflies that birds do not eat. It is protected by a distasteful fluid. Look on the under side of the leaves of several plants until you find a pretty, pale green cocoon with golden dots, hanging by a thread-like attachment. Early in the season the larvæ may be found feeding on the leaves.
This plant is troublesome in some fields and gardens and so is classed as a weed. When the stems come up in the spring, they are soft and tender and are sometimes used as pot herbs.
CORRELATIONS
Draw a leaf, a flower, a pair of pods, and a seed with its tuft.
Write an account of a visit to the woods to study wild flowers.