Asclepias syriaca 4, Common Milkweed, Howard County, MD, Helen Lowe Metzman
Asclepias syriaca 4, Common Milkweed, Howard County, MD, Helen Lowe Metzman
Common Milkweed - The primary foodplant in most of the range of the loved-by-all Monarch Butterfly . Also a weed, if you are a wheat farmer, and also something much less common in agricultural landscapes where they dominated in the past. Why? Because we figured out how to create food plants that cannot be killed by herbicides. Allow fields to truly become nearly barren of anything but the crop plant. Good for production. Not so good for the Monarch. Check out the 5 compartmented floral cells and for a good read look up how they are pollinated. Specimen and pictures by Helen Lowe Metzman in Howard County, Maryland.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know
" Ode on a Grecian Urn"
John Keats. Original public domain image from Flickr