PINK AND ROSE-COLORED FLOWERS 
MILKWEEDS (Including Poke Milkweed) 
Common Milkweed. Silkweed. {Asclepias syriaca). Milkweed 
family. June to August. 
The familiar roadside milkweed, a perennial with stout, 
finely hairy stem, maximum height five feet, containing milky 
juice. Flowers in large, drooping umbels, with sickening odor, 
varying from pink to greenish-yellow or brown. Calyx and 
corolla five-parted, divisions of the corolla bent downward; 
above the corolla rises a crown (corona) of upright " hoods " 
one-fourth to three-eighths inch across. The leaves are oval to 
oblong, somewhat blunt-pointed, maximum nine by four and 
one-half inches, pale, with short stalks; veins widely separated 
and parallel from midrib to edge. Rich ground. Fruit a thick 
pod filled with seeds, bearing white down. (Greek for ^scula- 
pius.) 
Purple Milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens) . Milkweed 
family. June, July. 
Rarely more than three feet high, stem slender. Flowers sim 
ilar to those of Common Milkweed but of deep magenta. Leaves 
egg-shaped to oblong, short-stalked, downy beneath, with 
widely separated veins, maximimi eight by three inches. Dry 
ground. 
Swamp Milkweed {Asclepias incarnata). Milkweed family. 
July, August. 
Leafy, slender, sHghtly hairy, if at all; maximum height. four 
feet. Flowers (dull pink) not over half as large as A. syriaca, 
the " crown " one-eighth inch in diameter. Its leaves are more 
lance-shaped than those of the preceding milkweeds and the 
veins tend to net. Swamps. Hairy Milkweed (Asclepias incar- 
nata, var. pulchra) resembles Swamp Milkweed, but is stouter, 
very hairy, leaves with shorter stalks, flowers less deeply colored. 
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