Milkweed Family (Asclepiadaceae)

Click the link below to find out more about this plant in the Milkweed Family:

• common milkweed

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How can I recognize members of the milkweed family?​
A combination of flower shape, milky sap, and dry pods that split down one side will tell you it’s milkweed. The flowers are usually clustered and can be white, pink, purple, green or orange (depending on species) but look closely and you will see a crown (corolla) of spreading or reflexed petals. Some say each little flower looks like a ballerina with a tutu.

Cool stuff to know about the milkweed family:
Even though the white, latex sap is somewhat toxic there are several insects that live only on the sap, most famously the Monarch butterfly caterpillars, but also several species of true bugs (Hemiptera), several beetles, and tussock moth caterpillars. Most of these insects have orange (or yellow) and black coloration which apparently warns birds, “I taste bad!”

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common milkweed

Asclepias syriaca

Monarch munchies
Milkweed leaves are famous for feeding the caterpillars of monarch butterflies. The compounds in the white sap of milkweeds make the caterpillar and the adult butterfly taste nasty to predators, such as birds. Once a bird tastes an orange monarch it likely won’t eat any similar orange butterfly. This protects the tasty viceroy butterfly which closely mimics the monarch but whose caterpillars eat willows and cottonwood leaves.  

In addition many pollinators use the nectar of milkweeds for food and then predators, such as crab spiders and mantises, are attracted to the insects that come to the nectar.
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Meet my family
Illinois has many other species of less common milkweeds such as: whorled, sand, tall green, purple, poke, swamp, and the orange butterfly milkweeds. They are all good for monarch butterfly caterpillars. That is why the new “Illinois Wildflower” is “the milkweed” (without specifying which species). There are several other critters that eat the leaves: the milkweed tussock moth, the milkweed beetle, and the large milkweed bug.

Scientific name origin
​The genus name is from the famous Greek character, Asclepius (possibly a real person) who is credited in western culture with inventing medicine. If a real person, he was later elevated to divine god-like status.