22 



AMERICAN FORES'rRY 



closed with the last day of December. Standing well up 

 above the cari:)ct of snow, one may see a score or more of 

 the curious and artistic-looking remains of the card teazels. 

 These have already been illustrated and described in a 

 former article in this Department; but not so the scattered 

 band near them of the very interesting seed pods of last 

 year's milkweeds. These appear to be of two or three 

 different kinds, as their varying sizes and appearances 

 would indicate. For the most part they are either of a 

 pale gray, or of an 

 equally pale tan 

 color, and the pods 

 are borne upon tall, 

 rather stout stalks, 

 in groups ranging 

 from one or two to 

 five or six, or 

 maybe more. Al- 

 most without ex- 

 ception they are all 

 split open length- 

 wise, and their 

 winged seeds ha\'e, 

 weeks ago, been dis- 

 tributed far and 

 wide, b)' the wind 

 or other agencies, 

 over the cotmtry, in 

 order that other 

 colonies of these 

 remarkable growths 

 may be started next 

 summer. 



But these pointed , 

 big and little, 

 empty pods, borne 

 by their dried stalks 

 well abo\-e the glis- 

 tening January 

 snow — out there — 

 by no means con- 

 stitute all there is 

 to be said and 

 learned about our 

 milkweeds. In the 

 first place, these 

 plants have been 

 given a distinct 

 family in the vege- 

 table world, and to 

 it has been rele- 

 gated some six 

 other minor groups 

 or genera. 



Now, as long ago 

 as the fifth of June, 

 1656, there was 

 bom at Aix, France, 

 a boy who, in the 

 years that followed. 



OUR MOST ABUNDANT MILKWEED 



Fig. 1. — ^Hcrc we have the beautiful flowers of the Common Milkweed or Silkwecd (AscUpias syriacu). 

 and also a head of buds belonging to another plant. Both are of natural size, and reproduced from one 

 of the author's photographs of specimens collected in the District of Columbia, in the summer of 1916. 

 In this common and very elegant species, the stem is tall and stout, frequently supporting the finest 

 kind of vegetable hair, which may here be seen with a hand-lens. In other words, the stem is finely 

 pubescent. Note the large and broad leaves which arc short- petioled, — that is, the "foot-stalk" of the 

 leaf is short. Distally, some of these leaves are pointed and rather narrow; others are blunt, and all 

 the wavy margins are entire. They are downy on their under-sides. Turning to the flowers, we find 

 them typical of this family, and of a very complex structure (morphology). In color they are cream 

 white, while specimens may be met with in which the flowers are a dull purple, the purple in other 

 specimens shading off into white. This one of our American milkweeds is very prone to furnish 

 hybrids with those species nearest related to it. A study of these hybrids is an interesting field for 

 investigation. 



came to be one of the world's great botanists. His name 

 was Joseph Pitton de Toumefort, and he died at the early 

 age of fifty-two. In his short span of life, however, he 

 described many beautiful flowers, and became professor of 

 botany at the Royal Garden of Plants at Paris. Toiunc- 

 fort studied, perhaps, only the milkweeds of Europe; and, 

 in aidgeling his brain for a name for the group or genus to 

 contain them, he somehow hit upon Ascleptas, having it in 

 mind, for some reason or other, to commemorate the name 



of ^sculapius or As- 

 klepios, the god of 

 medicine of Greek 

 mythology. How- 

 evcrthismay be, our 

 own famous as well 

 as favorite botanist, 

 Dr. Asa Gray, re- 

 tained this name, 

 and arrayed all of 

 our different species 

 of milkweeds in his 

 Asclepiodora, which 

 accounts for the 

 name of the whole 

 milkweed family — 

 the AsclepiadacccB. 

 Upwards of two 

 thousand species 

 and varieties of 

 these have been de- 

 scribed for the 

 world's flora, and 

 probably many an- 

 other is still un- 

 known to science. 

 x\mbitious young 

 students of wild 

 flowers may remem- 

 ber this fact; and 

 when exploring in 

 foreign and little 

 known lands, they 

 should not forget to 

 gather specimens of 

 thismost interesting 

 and famous assem- 

 blage of plants. 

 T hey c a 11 them 

 "weeds" in many 

 places ; but some- 

 how I never think of 

 any plant as a weed, 

 the more so as the 

 Century Dictionary 

 defines a weed as 

 "Any of those her- 

 baceous plants 

 which are useless 

 and without special 

 beauty , or especially 



