What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 30: butterfly weed

This is a bright orange flowering plant that is a host for Monarchs, and it’s a huge joy to find their caterpillars all over it as the season progresses. It also attracts milkweed bugs, which some consider pests, but we love them because daughter raised a couple for a class at one point and we had them in a large jar on our nature shelf for over a year.

More info:

Cressler, Alan 

Asclepias tuberosa

Asclepias tuberosa L.

Butterflyweed, Butterfly Milkweed, Orange Milkweed, Pleurisy Root, Chigger Flower

Asclepiadaceae (Milkweed Family)

Synonym(s): 

USDA Symbol: astu

USDA Native Status: L48 (N), CAN (N)

This bushy, 1 1/2-2 ft. perennial is prized for its large, flat-topped clusters of bright-orange flowers. The leaves are mostly alternate, 1 1/2-2 1/4 inches long, pointed, and smooth on the edge. The yellow-orange to bright orange flower clusters, 2-5 inches across, are at the top of the flowering stem. The abundance of stiff, lance-shaped foliage provides a dark-green backdrop for the showy flower heads. 

This showy plant is frequently grown from seed in home gardens. Its brilliant flowers attract butterflies. Because its tough root was chewed by the Indians as a cure for pleurisy and other pulmonary ailments, Butterfly Weed was given its other common name, Pleurisy Root. Although it is sometimes called Orange Milkweed, this species has no milky sap.