Asclepias
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.
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Family
Apocynaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - Perennial herbs, with entire leaves, and middle-sized or small flowers in umbels. Calyx 5-parted or 5-divided, usually small, the segments or sepals acute, often glandular within. Corolla deeply 5-parted, the segments mostly valvate, reflexed in anthesis. Corona-column generally present. Corona of 5 concave hoods, each bearing within a slender or subulate incurved horn. Filaments connate into a tube; anthers tipped with an inflexed membrane, winged, the wings broadened below the middle; pollen-masses solitary in each sac, pendulous on their caudicles. Stigma nearly flat, 5-angled or 5-lobed. Follicles acuminate. Seeds comose in all but one species. [Dedicated to AEseulapius.] About 95 species, mostly natives of the New World. Type species: Asclepias syriaca L.