Photo © 2005 Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

Butterflyweed

This odd milkweed, also known as Pleurisy Root, is unique among the milkweeds in lacking the milky sap that all other members of its genus possess. This, and several other minor differences in structure and chemistry cause some botanists to place it in its own genus. But regardless of its taxonomic place, this is an arrestingly beautiful wildflower.

Butterflyweed flourishes in old pastures, annually mowed grasslands and along the sides of highways where it can be up to four feet tall (although it usually tops out at 24 inches). The bright vivid orange of its bloom makes it visible over long distances. This, coupled with the sweet nectar secreted by its flowers, makes it extremely attractive to all sorts of pollinators - from bees and butterflies to hummingbirds.

Butterflyweed is sometimes seen in flower beds and is one of those flowers that has been taken up by the nursery trade and planted worldwide. Occasionally someone gets the bright idea to transplant a wild specimen from the highway right-of-way to their yard. This is not only illegal but also doomed to failure. This is a perennial plant of the true prairie and has a taproot which can, in a mature specimen descend into the earth as much as thirty feet. Should the taproot be severed the plant dies. It's far easier (and much more certain of success) to secure a nursery plant and transplant it than it is to attempt to dig up a wild one.

Butterflyweed was used for lung disorders by all the Indian tribes within its range. This practice was continued by the settlers who displaced them in historic times. Roots were traditionally used to make a tea which relieves the pain of pleurisy and other painful lung disorders, although aerial portions of the plant seem to work equally well and are much easier to secure. In either event this is not a plant to be taken lightly since it shares with its more traditional milkweed relatives the toxic cardiac glycosides which makes it inedible (and poisonous) to almost every herbivore around.

From our Archive:

• Gardening for Moths and Butterflies

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