Butterfly weed

Plant Characteristics

Habit		herbaceous
Height:	⇕	3 ft"ft" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 3.
Width:	⇔	2 ft"ft" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 2.
Lifespan:	⌛	perennial
Bloom:	❀	early spring, mid spring, late spring, early summer, mid summer, late summer

Cultivation

Exposure:	☼	sun
Water:	◍	moderate, dry
Features:	✓	flowers, butterflys
USDA Zones:		4 to 9.5
Flower features:	❀	orange, yellow

Scientific Names

Apocynaceae >

Asclepias >

tuberosa >

Common names

Butterfly Weed, Canada Root, Chigger Flower, Chiggerflower, Fluxroot, Indian Paintbrush, Indian Posy, Orange Milkweed, Orange Swallow-wort, Pleurisy Root, Silky Swallow-wort, Tuber Root, Yellow Milkweed, White-root, Windroot

Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is a species of milkweed native to eastern North America. It is a perennial plant growing to 0.6-2 m (1 -2 feet) tall, with clustered orange or yellow flowers from early summer to early fall. The leaves are spirally arranged, lanceolate, 5-12 cm long and 2-3 cm broad.

This plant favors dry, sand or gravel soil, but has also been reported on stream margins. It requires full sun.

The common name comes from the butterflies that are attracted to the plant by its color and its copious production of nectar. Butterfly weed is also the larval food plant of the Queen and Monarch butterflies. The butterfly weed grows to be 1-3 feet long.

The plant looks similar to the Lanceolate milkweed (Asclepias lanceolata), but is uniquely identified by the larger number of flowers, and the hairy stems that are not milky when broken. It is most commonly found in fields with dry soil.

Read about Butterfly weed in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

Asclepias tuberosa, Linn. Butterfly-weed. Pleurisy Root. Hairy, 2-3 ft. high, from long, horizontal roots, with more or less alternate, lance-oblong or lance-linear Lvs.: umbels several, short-peduncled: pods pubescent, erect. Dry banks and fields; widespread, and not infrequent. —A handsome plant. The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.

Cultivation

Propagation

Butterfly weed is easily propagated by cuttings in water.

Species

Subspecies indicated:

• Asclepias tuberosa interior, Central United States.
• Asclepias tuberosa rolfsii (Rolfs Milkweed), Southeast United States.
• Asclepias tuberosa tuberosa, Eastern United States.

Gallery

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  Entire plant from the ground to the flower

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  Young stems during spring

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  A young leaf

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  An emerging flower head

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  Closeup of the hairy stems

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  Closeup of unopened buds

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  Flower head

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  Closeup showing unopened, opening, and fully opened flower buds

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  Orange flowers

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  Red-striped orange flowers

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  Yellow flowers

References

• Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963

External links

• w:Butterfly weed. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
• Butterfly weed QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)