Swamp Milkweed

Here's one of our native wildflowers, the Swamp Milkweed. It's flowers might remind you of Purple Milkweed or some of the richer-colored Common Milkweed, but with the Swamp Milkweed the purple flowers are accompanied by narrower lance-shaped leaves. 

This one wasn't quite ready to bloom, but they are a fairly showy flower when they do bloom. I suspect that they'd be popular with gardeners if not for a few issues:

  1. They're technically poisonous, though I suspect that unless you fall on one and somehow manage to swallow most of it, you won't be poisoned by it. (I'm kind of a spaz, but think this scenario is too clumsy for even me to worry about.)
  2. If you're allergic to latex (apparently some people are, since they ask me this every time I donate blood), the milky substance that oozes out when you break a stem or leaf is latex.
  3. This particular milkweed does like wet areas, and might not grow well without abundant water.
  4. They probably don't stay in bloom as long as domesticated plants.

On the other hand, they are great for pollinators, and are host plants for butterflies (Monarch), moths, beetles, and bugs, all of which benefit our ecosystems in various ways.

July 22, 2021 at Fairview Farm
Photo 148400096, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

July 22, 2021 at Fairview Farm
Photo 148400098, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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