Common milkweed [Travel day]

Today was a travel day. "Only" 505 miles to Clare's mom's new place (instead of 570 miles to our hometown where the funeral will occur tomorrow).

This plant looks like Milkweed to me (genus Asclepias), but I'm checking. Not in the greenhouse, but "in the wild" in a field (north-east Ohio). The critter at the bottom, left-of-center looks like it might be a Yellow-collared Scape Moth (“Cisseps fulvicollis”), http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2013-10-09

ID'ed as “Asclepias syriaca,” Common milkweed.

Species page at PhytoImages, http://curator.phytoimages.siu.edu/cgi-bin/dol/dol_terminal.pl?taxon_name=Asclepias_syriaca&rank=binomial

From Missouri Botanical Garden, http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=b480 » “Common milkweed is a rough, weedy … perennial which commonly occurs in fields, open woods, waste areas, roadsides and along railroad tracks… It typically grows 3-4' (less frequently to 6') tall on stout, upright stems with thick, broad-oblong, reddish-veined, light green leaves (to 8" long). Domed, slightly drooping clusters (umbels) of fragrant, pinkish -purple flowers appear mostly in the upper leaf axils over a long bloom period from late spring well into summer. Stems and leaves exude a milky sap when cut or bruised. Flowers give way to prominent, warty seed pods (2-4" long) which split open when ripe releasing their numerous silky-tailed seeds for dispersal by the wind. Seed pods are valued in dried flower arrangements. Flowers are a nectar source for many butterflies and leaves are a food source for monarch butterfly larvae (caterpillars).”

From http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=g410 » “Genus name honours the Greek god Asklepios, god of medicine.”

1 year ago (“Horace’s Duskywing”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2014-07-22
2 years ago (“Sorry! Another Orange Sulphur”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2013-07-22
3 years ago (“Eremnophila aureonotata (a type of ‘thread-waisted wasp’)”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2012-07-22
4 years ago (“During”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2011-07-22

[ IMG_3650S12x9tm :: f/8 :: 1/800" :: ISO-200 :: 60mm ]