318 ASCLEPIADACEAE (MILKWEED FAMILY) 
The horizontal creeping rootstock which makes this plant such 
a noxious weed is often six or eight feet long, wrinkled, cylindrical, 
white inside, with a grayish brown bark, warty with the scars of 
former stems. It is medicinally valuable, and, when collected in 
autumn, cleaned, transversely sliced and dried, is worth six to eight 
cents a pound in the drug market. Grazing cattle dislike the bitter, 
milky juice and the weed is a pest in pastures. When young, the 
crisp, succulent shoots make an 
excellent “dish of greens,” cooked 
like asparagus. (Fig. 221.) 
Stem stout, two to five feet tall, 
softly downy when young but 
growing smooth with age, erect, 
and usually simple. Leaves ar- 
ranged in opposing pairs on alter- 
nate sides of the stalk, oblong to 
elliptic, smooth above, finely downy 
below, entire, the nerves extend- 
ing from the strong midrib uniting 
themselves by a bordering thread 
before reaching the margin; peti- 
oles stout, very short. Umbels 
terminal and lateral, dense, the 
flowers dull purple to pinkish, 
fragrant. Follicles three or four 
inches long, downy, and covered 
with soft, spinous projections. 
Seeds very many, brown, flat, 
their tufts of fine silken hair long 
and thick. Should they fall on water, Milkweed seeds can float, as 
well as fly, for each has a corky margin which makes of it a raft. 
Fic. 221.— Common Milkweed 
(Asclepias syriaca). X }. 
Means of control 
Cutting and many times cutting, throughout the growing season, 
depriving the rootstocks of all sustenance if possible. Plants 
should not be allowed to form fruit before cutting, for the pods 
ripen on the stalks. 
