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#spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 40.752532, -73.974627 Jul 29, 2014 - 9:26 AM
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Milkweed - food for monarch caterpillars #supa... Go to MAP 40.671037, -73.999778 Jun 16, 2015 - 5:49 PM
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#spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 38.8912, -77.024139 Aug 21, 2014 - 7:02 PM
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#spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 38.966213, -77.045853 Aug 21, 2014 - 6:56 PM
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#spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 40.572667, -73.998833 Aug 21, 2014 - 6:30 PM
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#spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 40.579225, -73.993888 Aug 21, 2014 - 6:23 PM
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#spontaneousurbanplants #supAsclepiassyriaca Go to MAP 40.731105, -73.93415 Aug 01, 2014 - 12:22 PM
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#spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 39.9784823, -82.9949904 May 22, 2014 - 10:45 PM
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Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) Go to MAP 39.99957, -83.0198055 May 20, 2014 - 5:05 PM
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Milkweed growing in cracks in the pavement Go to MAP 40.080808257, -83.036011942 May 14, 2014 - 3:56 PM
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#bronxsup #spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 40.809833333, -73.876666667 Jul 05, 2013 - 7:09 PM
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#statenislandsup #spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 40.57267317, -74.133472635 Jul 09, 2013 - 1:37 PM
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#bronxsup #spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 40.809667, -73.872333 Jul 05, 2013 - 7:01 PM
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#bronxsup #spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 40.809833, -73.876667 Jul 05, 2013 - 7:06 PM
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#bronxsup #spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 40.809833, -73.876667 Jul 05, 2013 - 7:08 PM
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#bronxsup #spontaneousurbanplants Go to MAP 40.809833, -73.876667 Jul 05, 2013 - 7:11 PM
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Go to MAP 40.672719, -74.010003 Jul 08, 2013 - 6:25 PM
Asclepias syriaca
Common Milkweed

Botanical description: Although farmers despise it as an invader of pastures and hayfields, Asclepias syriaca is one of the earliest recorded North American species in the 1635 work “Canadensium Plantarum Historia.” In urban areas, the perennial can be found growing in vacant lots, along roadsides, and in open, urban meadows - often in dense patches formed by a network of underground rhizomes. Common milkweed can attain a height of nearly five feet, during inflorescence. It produces large, flower clusters composed of over one hundred individual pink flowers. The spherical umbels are extremely fragrant and are attractive to a host of bees, butterflies, moths, beetles and bugs, but milkweed is most celebrated for its relationship with the Monarch butterfly. The monarch only uses Ascelpias syriaca to lay eggs on the white underside of young, velvety leaves. The chemicals secreted from the plant and absorbed by the larvae whose sole source of food is milkweed foliage; make the larvae, caterpillar and the adult butterflies extremely distasteful to predators. The species is noted for its tear shaped seed pods that open to reveal attractive flossy, wind dispersed seeds, which can fly great distances and are often among the first colonizers of a successional meadow.