Common Milkweed ( Asclepias syriaca )
Jump to lesson to avoid Kelli’s ‘creative writing’ project.
I bet you’re all excited to do this iconic variety of flora native to our prairies. There are over 100 varieties of milkweed, and I bet you’re dead set on doing a striking orange variety called Butterflyweed or Butterfly Mlikweed.
A gorgeous orange bloom about 1-3 feet tall and is a place that monarch butterflies lay their eggs.
Well, sorry—we’re not doing that one.
I just could never resolve in my head why this flower was called milkweed when it barely looked like what I knew milkweed looked like.
I became very, very familiar what milkweed was in the mid-1980’s.
Because I’ve killed literally thousands of this plant. Such are the blessings of being the daughter of a corn & soybean farmer.
We didn’t have much land, so we rented, and to keep the landlords happy, Dad wanted us to walk beans, so that’s what we did. I thought we cut down weeds so the combine didn’t choke on all the plants during harvest, I was… displeased to learn the main reason I walked beans was a cosmetic reason.
When I got to college, I didn’t have to walk beans anymore, due to this new amazing product that would kill the weed and leave the beans unaffected. This made me incredibly happy.
Though as people who have fought to educate us decades since then, that was not a good thing.
Though environmental education was getting through to us kids in the 1990’s, I never heard a word, nor put an original thought about that milkweed served a vital purpose to various insects, and they couldn’t just ‘use another plant’ for their food and homes.
So to the milkweed I see planted and thriving, I see you, and make this painting in honor of you.
If you’re interested in the ramblings of other farmers and the milkweed, check out these interesting articles: one two three
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