Nature Notes: Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

Butterfly Weed is a native herbaceous perennial. Though it is a member of the milkweed family it does not have milky-sapped stems.

Butterfly weed is easily grown in average, dry to medium, well-drained soils in full sun. Drought tolerant. Does well in poor, dry soils. New growth tends to emerge late in the spring. Plants are easily grown from seed, but are somewhat slow to establish and may take 2-3 years to produce flowers. Mature plants may freely self-seed in the landscape if seed pods are not removed prior to splitting open. Butterfly weed does not transplant well due to its deep taproot, and is probably best left undisturbed once established.

Butterfly Weed has a long bloom period from late spring throughout the summer. Flowers are a nectar source for many butterflies and leaves are a food source for monarch butterfly larvae (caterpillars).

Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies are among the species attracted to Butterfly Weed by its color and its copious production of nectar.

We hope the Butterfly Weed's wind-borne seeds have a successful journey and establish many more plants for future years.

All photos are by Jo.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Nature Notes: Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)