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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-136
Common Milkweed
Asclepias syriaca
Common Milkweed is the sole food source for monarch butterfly caterpillars, and its flowers also draw native bees and honey bees. Every part of the plant carries cardiac glycosides potent enough to kill livestock - dried hay is far more dangerous than standing pasture, since drying removes the bitter taste that normally keeps animals away while leaving the toxin behind. Despite that, cooked flower buds, young shoots and young pods are eaten as vegetables once boiled in changed water, and the plant also yields a strong bast fiber, a water-repelling seed floss that works as an oil-spill sorbent, and latex that can be worked into rubber.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 3–9
- Soil
- Sand · Silt · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 5.5–7.3
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 3–5 ft
- Mature spread
- 8–12 in
- Plant spacing
- 12–36 in
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Both
Keep exploring
Similar plants
Discover more plants with shared forest layers or growing conditions.
Adzuki Bean
Vigna angularis (Willd.) Ohwi & H.Ohashi
Adzuki is the odd one out among the beans in this group: a very hot summer is actively too hot for it, since heat above about 35C damages…
Herbaceous · USDA 3–11
African Eggplant
Solanum aethiopicum
African Eggplant, also called gboma or scarlet eggplant, is a West and Central African relative of eggplant that gives two harvests from one…
Herbaceous · USDA 8–12
Agrimony
Agrimonia eupatoria
Agrimony is a slender herbaceous perennial of sunny, disturbed ground across Europe and western Asia, grown mainly for the tannin-rich leaves…
Herbaceous · USDA 5–9
Alfalfa
Medicago sativa
Alfalfa is a deep-rooted perennial legume grown worldwide as one of the richest forage crops available, its taproot running six metres or…
Herbaceous · USDA 4–11
Alsike Clover
Trifolium hybridum
Alsike Clover fixes nitrogen in wet, acid ground too cold and heavy for red clover to thrive in, and its flowers keep bees working all season…
Herbaceous · USDA 5–9
Amaranth Greens
Amaranthus tricolor
Amaranth greens are one of the few leafy vegetables actually built for peak summer heat rather than one that just tolerates it - sown once…
Herbaceous · USDA 2–11
The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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