Kingdom Plantae Family Apocynaceae Genus Asclepias Higher classification Milkweed | Order Gentianales Subfamily Asclepiadoideae Scientific name Asclepias californica Rank Species | |
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Similar Milkweed, Asclepias eriocarpa, Asclepias erosa, Asclepias cordifolia, Asclepias fascicularis | ||
Asclepias californica milkweed briceburg calif april 20 2014
Asclepias californica is a species of milkweed known by the common name California milkweed. It grows throughout lower northern, central and southern California.
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Description
Asclepias californica is native to California and northern Baja California. It is a flowering perennial with thick, white, woolly stems which bend or run along the ground. The plentiful, hanging flowers are rounded structures with reflexed corollas and starlike arrays of bulbous anthers.
The flowers are dark purple.
Uses
This plant was eaten as candy by the Kawaiisu tribes of indigenous California; the milky sap within the leaves is flavorful and chewy when cooked, but can be poisonous when raw.
Butterflies
Asclepias californica is an important monarch butterfly caterpillar host plant, and chrysalis habitat plant. The alkaloids caterpillars ingest from the plant are retained in the butterfly, making it unpalatable to predators.
