SULLIVANT'S MILKWEED 



Asclepias sullivantii Engelm. 



July The wet prairie, descended from Pleistocene swamps 



Prairie roadsides and lakes, basically contains water-gi'owing plants. 



In the succession of plant species, as the shallow lake 

 filled with vegetation, there came the cattails, the sedges, the bur-reeds, 

 which made it a swamp. When the tall ])lumes of Spartina grass appeared, 

 this was the signpost indicating a change to wet prairie, and with it 

 came an entirely different group of plants. For miles, long ago. the wet 

 prairie with its waving Spartina, its bright prairie sunilowers and white 

 indigo spikes, extended across nuich of Illinois. As ])art of it. in this 

 peculiar association of plants, soil, and climate, were the stiff stalks of 

 Sullivant's milkweed. Today, as yesterday, it is as much an indication 

 of the wet prairie as the Spartina. 



This is a stout, smooth iiiilkw(M'd wliicli is distinguished from the 

 common milkweed by having broad, l)lue-green leaves conspicuously 

 veined with ])ink. with a great, thick, ])ink midrib. 'I^he stalk is smooth, 

 })iiik and greeu-wbite. and bears the ilutcd leaves in stemless pairs along 

 it. At the summit are large, globulai- clusters of ty[iieal milkweed flowers, 

 but the individual blossoms are larger tban those ol conunon milkweed. 

 They have the ty])ical five horns and recurving sepals — the latter deep 

 rose, the former i)right pink. The intricate and prominent veining of this 

 milkweed, however, is one of its highlights ami one of its chief distinc- 

 tions. That, and the presence of the remnants of wet prairie. ])lacarded 

 by Spartina, where the splendid columns of Sullivnnt's milkweed are 

 found. 



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