Asclepias curassavica L.

• Title

  Asclepias curassavica L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Asclepias curassavica L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Asclepias curassavica Algodoncillo Red Milkweed Family Asclepiadaceae Milkweed Family Asclepias curassavica Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 215. 1753 Spanish name of this widely distributed, herbaceous plant refers to the abundant, long, white, tufts of cotton-like hairs of its seeds, conspicuous after the ripe pods split open; the English name refers to the white, milk-like sap of most species of the genus; other English names sometimes used are Wild Ipecac, Bastard Ipecac, and Blood-flower . The plant is frequent in Porto Rico in fields, thickets, and waste grounds, at lower and middle elevations, ascending to at least about 600 meters, and grows also on Vieques and Culebra. Its range extends from the southeastern continental United States and Bermuda, throughout the West Indies, and from northern Mexico to Argentina. Asclepias, dedicated by Linnaeus to Aesculapius, the god of medicine, is a genus of about 95 species of perennial herbs, most of them American. They have untoothed, mostly opposite leaves, and rather small, regular and perfect flowers, in broad clusters. The calyx is 5-parted, or 5-divided, the corolla deeply 5-parted; between the corolla and the stamens there is a corona of 5, concave hoods, each partly enclosing a slender horn; the filaments of the stamens are united into a tube, the 5 anthers tipped by an inflexed membrane and winged, 2-celled, connivent around the stigma, each cavity containing a small mass of pollen (pollinia). The ovary consists of 2 carpels containing many ovules; the 2, short styles are connected at the top by the disk-like, 5-lobed stigma. The fruit is a pair of pods which open longitudinally on one side (follicles), or one follicle only is sometimes ripened; the flattened seeds are appendaged by many long, white hairs (coma), and widely scattered by the wind. Asclepias curassavica (from the island Curaçao) is smooth, or finely hairy toward the top, from 0.4 to 0.8 meters high. The oblong, or oblong-lanceolate, thin, pointed leaves are from 5 to 12 centimeters long, opposite, with stalks from 5 to 15 millimeters long. There are usually several clusters of flowers, the individual flowers on slender stalks from 1 to 2 centimeters long; the lobes of the corolla are red-purple, rarely yellow, from 6 to 8 millimeters long; the hoods of the corona are about 4 millimeters long, shorter than the flattened, curved horn. The follicles are spindle-shaped, erect, smooth, or minutely hairy, from 3 to 10 centimeters long. Another species, Asclepias nivea, is also illustrated in this work.