The Milkweed is a plant with a story to tell.  Like an excited professor, it can offer up a dizzying diatribe of facts delivered during a heavily accented stream of consciousness. Occasionally it shifts tone and beckons you with a mysterious, but equally perplexing, purr. It pulls you up to the table over a hard drink and drops references to a shady past and lapses into a few dead languages.  It takes a bit of translation to decipher the story, but it is well worth it.

  To attempt comprehension of the entire tale at one time and in one place isn’t recommended, but we can pull out a few tidbits from the narrative. The scientific name of the Common Milkweed is a good place to start.

  The Latin designation of Asclepius syriaca is a reference to both godliness and humanness. Asclepius or Askelpios was an ancient Greek doctor who took his powers of healing one step further than the local Gods saw fit. “Skep,” as we’ll call him, discovered the secrets of bringing dead patients back to life. In a fit of jealousy, Hades directed Zeus to lay a lightning bolt on him and thus the doctor was fried. No sooner had the smoke cleared, however, than the other Gods took pity on the poor physician and they placed him in the starry night sky and hired him as the “God of Healing.” (Zeus was steamed. He was quoted in the Temple Times as telling “Skep” to “Go to Hades”).

  Although the white milky sap of the milkweed contains alkaloid poisons (and the reason for the common name) it can provide a cure for warts – thus the healing reference. The relationship between Milkweed and the Monarch Butterfly is due to this magical sap, but that is a well known story.  Let’s stick to the obscure for now.

  The “syriaca” part of the name is, to put it bluntly, a mistake. Originally the plant was believed to be a native of Syria.  Later it was discovered that it is a native of North America and that the Syrian plants were transplanted there as alien imports. The name was never changed (some say due to the backhanded influences of Hades who wished the misnomer to remain attached to “that pseudo God Asklepios”). 

  In a straight forward, one could say Godlike, fashion the Milkweed offers up a selection of explosive flower clusters this time of year.  There is no need for translation. The deep pink pom poms emitting their heady perfume are nothing short of fantastic (see here). Close examination of the individual flowers (see here) reveals a stunning little ringlet of cuplike hoods.  Each hood has a horn sticking out of its center.  The collective hoods, called the crown, are backed with reclining petals.

  Milkweed flowers offer a high sugar nectar which insects find irresistible. They are attracted to it in droves.  Insect activity results in pollination and pollination should result in seed development. It is odd, then, that the milkweed begins to mumble a bit when discussing this part of its life. Given all those customers, it is strange that only one or two flowers are actually pollinated and result in a seed pod. The problem is that the milkweed demands a bit too much of its visitors.

  The milkweed flower is an insect trap. In the narrow space between each hood is a pair of pollen sacs arranged like a saddlebag or an upside-down “Y.” A dark sticky gland, called the translator, joins them at the center. (You can see this gland as a dark spot between the hoods if you go back to the detail picture). When an insect steps onto the flower, the smooth hoods cause them to slip about and their hairy little feet end up getting wedged in those narrow slits.  As the insect struggles to eradicate itself, the translator and its pair of pollen sacs hitch on for a ride. Take a look at this incredible photo of a pollen sac pair – the translator gland is the vicious looking thing in the middle that hooks onto the leg.

  Gifted with a short-term memory (and a nectar induced stupor), the insect forgives the trauma and continues to feed and get trapped.  Take close look at this photo and you’ll see a pollen bag attached to the foot of a large fly (look dead center at the extended leg). When a foot with a pollen sac already in tow slips down into a slit, it has the potential to leave this old sac in place while picking up a new one. Each time this takes place, the insect is presented with a risk to life and limb. Sometimes the leg is held so firmly that the appendage is ripped off in the ensuing struggle. Small weak insects are often unable to break free and die in place. 

  The odd thing about this whole scenario is that the pollen sacs rarely find their final mark. Only a few are plunged deep enough into a flower to stay and contact the tiny female pore within.  The milkweed has set up a cascading succession of demanding events to produce its seed pods. It is a complicated plant which depends on a translator to communicate.