THE AMERICAN MILKWEEDS 



27 



I 



her little work on 

 "How to Know Wild 

 Flowers, " says that 

 the "swamp milk- 

 weed, .4. incarnata, 

 grows commonly in 

 moist places. Its 

 \'ery leafy stems are 

 two or three feet 

 high, with narrow- 

 ly oblong, pointed 

 leaves. Its intense 

 purple-pink flowers 

 gleam from the wet 

 meadows nearly all 

 summer. They are 

 smaller than those 

 of the purple milk- 

 weed, A. purpitra- 

 s c en s , which 

 abounds in dry 

 ground, and which 

 may be classed 

 among deep pink or 

 purple flowers ac- 

 cording to the eye 

 of the beholder" 

 (p. 229). 



During the latter 

 part of the summer 

 of 1 9 1 6, m}- wife and 

 I found ourselves 

 making our way 

 through a rank, old 

 pasture that bor- 

 dered the George- 

 town Canal, about 

 a mile above the 

 Lock Tavern Club 

 at Great Falls, 

 Maryland. It was 

 an ideal day for a 

 tramp, and many 

 species of the early 

 autumn flowers 

 were in full bloom. 

 We soon came to a 

 part of the field 

 where a very large 

 number of milk- 

 weeds had flourished 

 — principally the 

 butterfly-weed and 

 the common species 

 or silk- weed {A . 

 syriaca) . At the 

 time of which I 

 write, they had 

 nearly all gone to 

 seed, and the sight 



MILKWEED PODS OF A LONG, SLENDER V.\RIETY 



Fig. 6. — For some reason or other, there has been a disposition on the part of the seed-pods of some 

 milkweeds to become elongated, pointed distally. and of moderate caliber even where the girth is 

 greatest. This is well shown in the pods here represented, which are of the blunt-leaved milkweed 

 {.4. amplexicaidis). These have a comparatively smooth external surface, with faint indications of 

 longitudinal ridges. Instead of only two pods being attached to the end of the plant-stem, there are 

 three, and all of them are in good condition. The other stem in the picture supports only two, the 

 bases only of which are seen, and they are in perfect condition. This species has been named the blunt- 

 leaved milkweed for the reason that the terminal apex of the leaf is bluntly rounded off. which is unusual 

 in the ieaves of this genus of plants. The insects shown on these pods are representatives of either 

 the family Peniatomida or the Coreida, which contain the well-known stink-bugs and the ill-smclling 

 squash bugs. One other little beetle is very frequently found on the milkweeds in the summer time, 

 especially on the common milkweed, and th.Vt is the red milkweed beetle. He is often present in numbers 

 to the extent of two or three dozen on the same plant. Being fully half an inch long, with the body a 

 bright vermilion red, with four black spots on either wing and with black antennae, he is a very striking 

 little fellow not readily overlooked. There is also another red and black beetle about the same size, 

 with which it must not be confused. Last summer I photographed, natural size, some thirty of these 

 on a pod of the common milkweed, and they were kindly identified for me by Dr. L. O. Howard, Chief 

 of the Division of Entomologv of the V. S. Department of Agriculture, as the pupal form of Lygxus 

 turcicus Fabr. It is also found on the common milkweed in July. Attention is invited to these insects 

 for the reason that they are so commonly f(jund on our milkweeds that students of these plants should 

 be familiar with them. If you study the milkweeds next summer, you will be sure to meet with the 

 red milkweed beetle (Tftraopes tetraoplhalmus) . and with perhaps the other which is not so abundant. 



was really quite a 

 wonderful one. 

 Scores of their dried 

 stalks were in evi- 

 dence on all sides, 

 and hundreds of the 

 little pods of the 

 butterfly-weed had 

 burst open (Fig. 5), 

 as had many of the 

 common species 

 (Fig. 4). Their 

 seeds were everA-- 

 where, borne along 

 by the very gentle 

 breeze that came ifi 

 fitful jjuffs, having 

 barely force enough 

 to carry away those 

 seeds that had the 

 feeblest hold upon 

 the pods that har- 

 bored them. Some 

 of the pods that had 

 just split open 

 looked as though a 

 brown-scaled fish 

 had been neatly 

 packed away in 

 them; but this illu- 

 sion was dispelled 

 in the case of others 

 by their being so far 

 matured that the 

 winged seeds were 

 already emerging 

 from them. The 

 sight was trul\- an 

 extraordinary one, 

 made all the more 

 .so by the great 

 abundance of the 

 stalks in view, and 

 by the presence of 

 so many other 

 gorgeous plants in 

 full flower, as great 

 masses of the little, 

 white, wreath-aster, 

 the New England 

 aster, enormous 

 specimens of poke- 

 weed {Phytolacca 

 decandra), two or 

 three of which were 

 over six feet in 

 height, with great, 

 intensely scarlet 

 trunks and limbs, 

 and with hundreds 



