Magnificent milkweed

That shriveled husk of gnarly-looking stuff, twisted and spent along roadways and in fields throughout our region, is really the beautiful, if sere, culmination of the common milkweed’s life cycle.

During the fullness of summer, milkweed is an attractive and fragrant plant sporting clusters of pink or purple flowers. The stalky green plant ranges from two to six feet in height.

When its skin is broken, the plant emits a sticky and milky juice. The pod is actually the plant’s fruit and is filled with finely layered seeds attached to silky hairs. In bygone days, seed tassels were used to fill pillows and feather beds.

The plant’s foliage is the sole food source for milkweed bugs, milkweed leaf beetles and monarch butterfly caterepillars. The larvae and adult butterflies become toxic to predators after consuming the plant’s leaves, which contain cardiac glycosides and are related to the digitalins used in treating some heart disease.

According to “Medicinal Plants and Herbs” by Steven Foster and James A. Duke, “American Indians used [milkweed] root tea as a laxative and as a diuretic for ‘gravel’ (kidney stones) and dropsy; applied milky latex to warts, moles, ringworm. . . One Mohawk anti-fertility concoction contained Milkweed and Jack-in-the-Pulpit, both considered dangerous and contraceptive.”

Misunderstood by some and poorly appreciated by others who consider the plant a pest, milkweed hosts a variety of insects that consider it very attractive indeed. Many species of moths, butterflies, beetles and bees derive sustenance from the plant.

When frosts fell the stalks and burst the warty pouches in late fall, the poetic expression of the plant’s spilled seed-cache flecked with ice crystals is truly magnificent.