Butterfly Milkweeds

Here's an interesting member of the milkweeds, part of the dogbane family. It's a Butterfly Milkweed (AKA Butterfly Weed). This milkweed is known for its small but bright orange flowers; when in bloom they're pretty easy to spot. They do have a taller relative, the Fewflower Milkweed which is technically in New Jersey but I'm not sure I've ever seen one [1].

A lot of times you can verify that a plant is a milkweed (or dogbane) by breaking a small part of a leaf; if you see a white sticky latex-like substance oozing out, you've got a milkweed (or dogbane). This stuff is what makes milkweeds poisonous and makes the Monarch caterpillars that eat it poisonous too. Butterfly Milkweed doesn't really ooze this substance. My understanding is that Monarch caterpillars can/will eat Butterfly Milkweed but won't become poisonous like their relatives who feed on other milkweed species [2]. 

Though their flowers are small, they are considered to be fairly prolific nectar producers. That nectar combined with the abundance of flowers on a plant makes these milkweeds popular with lots of pollinators. When in bloom they attract lots of insect visitors.

It's odd that although I've shown these before, the only time they got a post of their own was when I showed an unusual yellow version of the plant; I've really only noticed the yellow-flowered ones growing wild at 1 location at Duke Farms.

June 15, 2023 at Sourland Mountain Preserve
Photo 300990547, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

June 15, 2023 at Sourland Mountain Preserve
Photo 300992594, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

[1] Besides growing to over twice the height of Butterfly Milkweed, the flowers do seem a little sparse on the Fewflower Milkweed, which would be another tipoff that I'm not looking at a Butterfly Milkweed.

[2] If you're a bird, you still probably won't eat any Monarchs because you don't know what they ate as caterpillars.

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