niMIl^weeb Jfamil^. 



Common Milkweed. Aschpias Cornuti. 



Found in meadows and roadsides, from June to August. 



The large, round, and tough-fibred stalk, which grows from 3 to 4 

 feet high, has a sticky and milky Juice, is minutely downy, and pale 

 green. 



The leaf is often very large (from 4 to 8 inches long), oval, rounded 

 at both ends, with an entire and somewhat wavy margin, and a large 

 midrib ; it is thick in texture, smooth above, but a little downy beneath, 

 and grayish-green in color, the underside being silvery, — the wide mid- 

 rib is light, or often tinged with dull red. 



The flower is rather large ; the crown is brownish-pink, the lobes 

 light flesh-pink or pale lilac, and the foot-stems are pinkish. The 

 flower-clusters are large, round, and drooping ; they spring from the 

 angles of the upper leaves. 



Though regarded as a " weed " this Milkweed has many attractive 

 features. 



The seed-pods of the Milkweeds are most interesting ; I'ough on the 

 outside, they are beautifully finished within, with a fine, smooth, light 

 lining. The silky plumes of the flat-brown seeds are closely folded 

 together and the seeds lie overlapping like the scales of a flsh. The 

 light green outside of the Butterfly- Weed pod, tinged with crimson- 

 tawny, becomes with age a fine tree-trunk gray. In some varieties a 

 likeness to a dove may be found in the inverted pod. 



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