Yellow and Orange 



milky juice scanty. Leaves: Usually all alternate, lance- 

 shaped, seated on stem. Fruit: A pair of erect, hoary pods, 

 2 to 3 in. long, i at least containing silky plumed seeds. 



Preferred Habitat — Dry or sandy fields, hills, roadsides. 

 Flowering Season — June — September. 



Distribution — Maine and Ontario to Arizona, south to the Gulf 

 1^ of Mexico. 



Intensely brilliant clusters of this the most ornamental of all 

 native milkweeds set dry fields ablaze with color. Above them 

 butterflies hover, float, alight, sip, and sail away — the great, dark, 

 velvety, pipe-vine swallow-tail {Papiliophilenor), its green-shaded 

 hind wings marked with little white half moons ; the yellow and 

 brown, common. Eastern swallow-tail (P. asterias), that we saw 

 about the wild parsnip and other members of the carrot family ; 

 the exquisite, large, spice-bush swallow-tail, whose bugaboo cater- 

 pillar startled us when we unrolled a leaf of its favorite food 

 supply (p. 298); the small, common, white, cabbage butterfly 

 {Pieris protodice); the even more common little sulphur butterflies, 

 inseparable from clover fields and mud puddles ; the painted lady 

 that follows thistles around the globe; the regal fritillary {Argynnis 

 idalia), its black and fulvous wings marked with silver crescents, 

 a gorgeous creature developed from the black and orange cater- 

 pillar that prowls at night among violet plants ; the great spangled 

 fritillary of similar habit; the bright fulvous and black pearl cres- 

 cent butterfly {Phyciodes tharos), its small wings usually seen 

 hovering about the asters ; the little grayish-brown, coral hair- 

 streak ( Thecla titus), and the bronze copper {Chrysophanus thoe), 

 whose caterpillar feeds on sorrel {Rumex); the delicate, tailed blue 

 butterfly {Lyccena comyntas), with a wing expansion of only an 

 inch from tip to tip ; all these visitors duplicated again and again— 

 these and several others that either escaped the net before they 

 were named, or could not be run down, were seen one bright 

 midsummer day along a Long Island roadside bordered with but- 

 terfly weed. Most abundant of all was still another species, the 

 splendid monarch {Anosia plexippus), the most familiar representa- 

 tive of the tribe of milkweed butterflies (p. 138). Swarms of 

 this enormously prolific species are believed to migrate to the Gulf 

 States, and beyond at the approach of cold weather, as regularly as 

 the birds, travelling in numbers so vast that the naked trees on 

 which they pause to rest appear to be still decked with autumnal 

 foliage. This milkweed butterfly "is a great migrant," says Dr. 

 Holland, "and within quite recent years, with Yankee instinct, has 

 crossed the Pacific, probably on merchant vessels, the chrysalids 

 being possibly concealed in bales of hay, and has found lodgment 

 in Australia where it has greatly multiplied in the warmer parts 

 of the Island Continent, and has thence spread northward and 

 westward^ until in its migrations it has reached Java and Sumatra, 



326 



