Meet The Aquatic Milkweed! 🌿

TAXA TUESDAY 🌿
w/ the Florida Native Plant Society!
Meet the Aquatic Milkweed!
Aquatic Milkweed
aka White Swamp Milkweed
Asclepias perennis
Family: Apocynaceae
One of the most unique of our 21 native milkweed species, Aquatic Milkweed, Asclepias perennis, occurs in swamps, floodplains, and bottomland hardwood forests across North and Central Florida.
While most of our native milkweeds are adapted to dry sandhill habitats, Aquatic Milkweed grows in seasonally flooded areas. Because it is adapted to persist through periods of drought and flooding, it is adaptable and easy to grow in most yards-as long as the soil has a decent amount of organic matter (not too sandy).
An adaptation to their wet environment is visible in their seeds, which lack the fluffy white comas that all our other native milkweed seeds have. The comas aid in seed dispersal via wind, but because Aquatic Milkweeds rely on flowing water to disperse their seeds, they are unnecessary.
Coma - A dense tuft of hairs attached to a seed, often resembling a beard.
Aquatic Milkweed has a much longer and continual season of bloom compared to our other native species. Clusters of small white flowers begin in late spring and keep flowering through fall-even into winter! This species produces copious amounts of seed, and if given exposed, moist soils rich with organic matter, it will easily reseed and form nice colonies.
The long, lance-shaped leaves are also evergreen and are a preferred food source for monarch and queen butterfly caterpillars.
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Thanks for tuning in! 👋🏻
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[@rlayton8523]

Really enjoyed this video. Thank you.

[@katiecannon8186]

Beautiful garden you were in. You should show it sometime.

[@erikaerika7788]

I have many of this small plants and flower a lot but the catterpillar ALWAYS eat my seed pods 😂 have to protect them to be able to get seeds..

[@lucitaros8141]

Does this grow in zone 10? We have white, sandy, clay soil.