“Its hidden silk has spun.” These few words, taken from Helen Hunt Jackson’s poem “September,” artfully introduce the lovely Asclepias syriaca or milkweed.
Visualizing Asclepias syriaca, you probably think of it as another weed; tall, awkward, and just a nuisance. But there is some good in almost everything if you seek it, and so it is with milkweed.
The milkweed family was named after the Greek god Asclepius—the god of medicine. Logically then, it would seem there was some medicinal value, symbolic or actual, attached to the plant.
Common Milkweed Features
The common milkweed has simple stems 3’ to 5’ feet high, with opposite, lanceolate-oblong, petiolate leaves, downy on the undersurface. The flowers are sweet-scented and arranged in nodding umbels of pale purple.
They are set in an upside-down position, making it necessary for bees and other insects to swing below to collect the honey. They plant flowers in July and August.
The milkweed pod, or follicle, is covered with sharp prickles and contains billows of silky seed-down.
When the milkweed is ripe, the pod bursts open on one side only, and the seeds become airborne in their silky parachutes.
If the seeds come in contact with rain or severe wind and are forced down, they are equipped with a corky substance that converts them from planes to sailboats and travels with equal ease on the water. This adaptability may account for their wide distribution.
Milkweed For American Indians
Milkweed was a good friend of the American Indians. They would collect the honey of the blossoms and use it as sugar. In early 1800, the medical profession used the roots for treating asthma and scrofula.
When World War II cut off East Indian supplies of kapok, milkweed floss was used to give buoyancy to life jackets. Also, the stems, if shredded, may be made into twine and the leaves into paper, and there is a possibility the sticky milk fluid may be used in making adhesives.
Milkweed makes an excellent screen for the flower garden, and in fall, the dry pods may be dipped in gold or silver paint and used in dried bouquets.
As a child, I remember my mother gathering and cooking young plants as greens.
Care had to be taken that only tender plants were used for pieces of flannel had been added should an older leaf or two accidentally get into the pot.
44659 by Gladys Reed Robinson