Common Milk-weed (Asclepias syriaca) is the most 
abundant and the best known of the Milk-weeds. It 
grows everywhere along roadsides, in fields and on the 
borders of woods. The rather stout stem rises from 
2 to 5 feet high and has numerous, opposite, large, ob¬ 
long, short-stemmed leaves of a yellow-green color. Both 
the leaves and the stem are finely hairy and both yield 
quantities of a thick, sticky, bitter, milky fluid if they 
are broken or bruised anywhere. 
The flowers grow in rounded clusters often in a pen¬ 
dant position, from the axils of the upper leaves. They 
are very fragrant and secrete an abundance of nectar. 
In the Fall, the clusters of lilac-colored flowers have 
been replaced by large, rough-coated seed-pods that are 
completely filled with the silkiest of flossy substance 
attached to the numerous black seeds; finally the pod 
bursts and liberates the seeds, each floating away on the 
breeze, sometimes aviating for several miles before com¬ 
ing to earth. 
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