24 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



times a single stalk will bear upwards of twenty of 

 these rich flower-clusters. Then, too, it is not long 

 before we appreciate why it was called the butterfly-weed, 

 for its long, small, orange and yellow flowers seem to 

 actually fascinate a 

 number of our pret- 

 ties t midsummer 

 butterflies. In fact, 

 one exquisite species 

 of butterfly, partic- 

 ularly given to re- 

 sorting to these 

 flowers, is the Milk- 

 weed Butterfly 

 (Anosia plexippus) 

 a very common, 

 but none the less 

 beautiful insect, 

 possessed of a most 

 extraordinary his- 

 tory, as any onemay 

 discover by reading 

 the account of its 

 life history, given us 

 by our most distin- 

 guished writer on 

 the subject, Dr. 

 Wm. J. Holland, in 

 his elegant volume, 

 "The Butterfly 

 Book." 



Neltje Blanchan, 

 in her very useful 

 work, "Nature's 

 Garden," gives one 

 instance where 

 nearly twenty differ- 

 ent species of our 

 most beautifully 

 colored butterflies 

 were attracted at 

 one time to a mass 

 of these milkweeds, 

 all in full flower and 

 growing in one 

 place, on a "mid- 

 summer day along 

 a Long Island 

 roadside." 



There is much 

 to be seen in Figure 

 5 of the present arti- 

 cle, and much that 

 sheds light upon 

 the milkweeds as a 

 groupofplants. We 

 must note how very 

 slender, elongate, 

 and spindle-shaped 

 these pods are in 



Fig. 3. 



(A.syriaco); it is reproduced from the author's own photograph of a specimen obtained in Maryland, 

 in the fall or late summer of 1916. It will be observed that the leaves of the plant have all fallen off, 

 and that the soft, spinous coat of the exterior of these pods has likewise nearly all disappeared. Note 

 how these pods point upwards as well as downwards, and that in every instance the twin pod has aborted 

 and fallen off from the stem. The stem, or peduncle, has also shrivelled up, and may still have clinging 

 to it some of the fibres of the outer coat of the seed-pod. These structures are now a pale tan color; 

 their seeds are rapidly ripening inside, and very soon these pods, had they not been collected, would 

 have split open, allowing the silky-winged seeds to escape and to float away to start other coloniesof 

 the plant, in other regions far and near. At this stage the juices of the stem of the plant have all dried 

 up; it is light and brittle, the color being nearly the same as the pods. On the middle pod is a beautiful, 

 living specimen of the butterfly known as Crapta progne, very nearly natural size. Dr. W. J. Holland 

 states in his "Butterfly Book" that this species occurs only as far south as Pennsylvania, while I cap- 

 tured this specimen in the District of Columbia (summer of 1916). In the work cited it is Figures 3 

 and 4, of Plate xx. The two grasshoppers are of the common species found in the same section. 



the Butterfly milkweed, very different from some of the 

 robust ones of other species (Fig. 2). Any one of these seed- 

 pods is smooth and longitudinally lined on the outside, while 

 inside, the surface is also smooth and more distinctly 



grooved from tip to 

 tip. At first they 

 are green outside, 

 turning gradually a 

 beautiful tawny 

 brown as they ripen ; 

 these two colors 

 blend in some in- 

 stances. As in all 

 American milk- 

 weeds, the very thin 

 dark brown, flat, 

 and roundish seeds 

 are each attached 

 to a silky and 

 feathery affair, 

 which, when the 

 seed quits the 

 pod after it is fully 

 matured or devel- 

 oped, bears it away 

 on the breeze to a 

 different locality, 

 and to a vast num- 

 ber of very different 

 fates. As will be ob- 

 served in the illus- 

 tration, these stalks 

 of the Butterfly 

 milkweed branch 

 near their extremi- 

 ties; the terminal 

 ends of the branches 

 fork, and a seedpod 

 is borne on the tip or 

 end of each fork. 

 Often both pods 

 mature and are per- 

 fect; but very fre- 

 quently one of them 

 will abort and the 

 seeds amount to 

 nothing. This is al- 

 most the rule in our 

 Common Milkweed 

 (Asclepias syriaca). 

 The entire history 

 of the fertilization 

 of the milkweed 

 flowers is a thrilling, 

 botanical romance; 

 a whole volume of 

 no mean propor- 

 tions might be de- 

 voted to it and 

 not then exhaust 



MILKWEED PODS AS THEY APPEAR JUST BEFORE BURSTING OPEN 

 -We have here a most interesting illustration of the seed-pods of the Common Milkweed 



