common milkweed

Also known as Butterfly Flower, Silkweed, Silky Swallow-wort, Virginia Silkweed

Common milkweed anchors eastern North American field ecosystems with stout, velvety stems and spherical clusters of fragrant pinkish-purple flowers. Broad, opposing leaves produce a milky latex rich in toxic cardiac glycosides, a natural defense famously co-opted by monarch butterfly caterpillars to make themselves unpalatable to predators. In autumn, large spiny seed pods split open to release hundreds of flat seeds drifted away on silky white threads.