![]() ![]() It was a wonderful gift to have a study initiated by a group effort during a course. This glimpse of the nature of common milkweed initiated my journey to get to know the plant better. During these days we had begun to see milkweed as a remarkable composition expressing itself, on the one hand, in robust structures such as the rhizomes, upright stems, and leaves and, on the other hand, in the high-grade refinement of the flower. John’s Wort ( Hypericum perforatum), which was also flowering at the time. And we had begun to get a glimpse of its unique characteristics, which became all the more apparent through a comparison with St. After four morning sessions dedicated to milkweed, we had made an acquaintance with the plant. (There were a number of trained biologists in the course.) We also observed interaction with insects and saw how flies sometimes became caught in the flowers and died. ![]() It took us a good while just to get clear about the flower parts and their relation to more “normal” flowers. Milkweed drew us all into its world of refined structures. This study proved to be particularly intense. Milkweed had finally caught my attention, and I decided that we should focus on it for our initial plant study in that weeklong course. I realized that the plant has a highly complex flower structure and, in addition, observed how the flowers were being visited by many different insects. But it was only when I was preparing for the 2006 summer course at The Nature Institute and when I noticed the flowers of common milkweed beginning to open, that I looked closely at them for the first time. I also knew that common milkweed is the main food plant for monarch butterfly larvae. True, I was fascinated by its big globes of flowers and, in the fall, by its beautiful seeds that floated through the air on their tufts of white silk. I had casually observed common milkweed ( Asclepias syriaca, Asclepiadaceae) but never paid too much attention to it. We shall then have no need of the word ‘conservation,’ for we shall have the thing itself.” - Aldo Leopold (1999, p. When enough men know this, we need fear no indifference to the welfare of bushes, or birds, or soil, or trees. “All I am saying is that there is also drama in every bush, if you can see it. The Story of an Organism: Common Milkweed Craig Holdrege ![]()
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