The Gifted Photographer
Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
Asclepias tuberosa
Butterfly Weed is easy, can be transplanted in fall or grown from seed, prefers a well-drained light, sandy, humus rich, or peaty soil in a sunny position. The root is spindle-shaped, large, branching, white, and fleshy with a knotted crown, it sends up several erect, stout, round and hairy stems, growing from 1 to 3 feet high. Stems are branched near the top and have corymbs or umbels of many deep yellow to dark orange, or almost red, flowers.
Flowers bloom usually from June to September, followed in the fall by seed pods from 4 to 5 inches long containing the seeds with their long silky hairs or floss. This plant, unlike the other milkweeds, contains little or no milky juice. The seed pods are edible, cooked when young, harvest them before the seed floss forms. Harvest flowers in bloom, also edible cooked, said to taste like sweet peas. Leaves and new buds are edible cooked like spinach. Harvest root in fall and dry for later herb use.
Butterfly Weed is edible and medicinal. Asclepias tuberosa has a long history of use as a valuable alternative medicine and is one of the most important of the indigenous American species. The plant (above ground) is used mainly for food and clothing. The root is medicinal, it is antispasmodic, carminative, mildly cathartic, diaphoretic, diuretic, expectorant, tonic and vasodilator.
Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
Asclepias tuberosa
Butterfly Weed is easy, can be transplanted in fall or grown from seed, prefers a well-drained light, sandy, humus rich, or peaty soil in a sunny position. The root is spindle-shaped, large, branching, white, and fleshy with a knotted crown, it sends up several erect, stout, round and hairy stems, growing from 1 to 3 feet high. Stems are branched near the top and have corymbs or umbels of many deep yellow to dark orange, or almost red, flowers.
Flowers bloom usually from June to September, followed in the fall by seed pods from 4 to 5 inches long containing the seeds with their long silky hairs or floss. This plant, unlike the other milkweeds, contains little or no milky juice. The seed pods are edible, cooked when young, harvest them before the seed floss forms. Harvest flowers in bloom, also edible cooked, said to taste like sweet peas. Leaves and new buds are edible cooked like spinach. Harvest root in fall and dry for later herb use.
Butterfly Weed is edible and medicinal. Asclepias tuberosa has a long history of use as a valuable alternative medicine and is one of the most important of the indigenous American species. The plant (above ground) is used mainly for food and clothing. The root is medicinal, it is antispasmodic, carminative, mildly cathartic, diaphoretic, diuretic, expectorant, tonic and vasodilator.