Butterfly Weed (Asclepius tuberosa) provides an important source of nectar for butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. It's actually a type of Milkweed and if you remember from our Monarch Butterfly post, the leaves contain cardiac glyceride which protects the monarch larvae from predators. Indigenous peoples in South America use it on poisoned arrows.
Native Americans from our hemisphere, though, used it as an expectorant for wet coughs. Filaments found in the flowers are both buoyant and provide good insulation, so during World War II, the US Government collected 5,000 tons of them to use in life jackets. Today, you can find the filaments in hypoallergenic pillows. Milkweed species, like Goldenrods, produce natural latex and the German and US Governments researched processing Milkweed for a local source of rubber in the 1940s. The high concentrations of dextrose in Milkweed make it a preferred sweetener for beverages in South America. They also use the strong fibers in the stems to make rope.
Because of the natural healing properties of this plant, Carl Linnaeus named it after the Greek God of Healing, Asclepius. Fun non-flower fact: the Rod of Asclepius, a single snake wound around a stick, is used in most modern logos for health organizations.
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| Star of Life - you've seen this on every ambulance ever. |
Slugs love Purple Cone Flower (Echinacea purpurea). The genus name, Echinacea, comes from the Ancient Greek word echino, which meant sea urchin (modern scientists call sea urchins echinoderms) because the central disk looks spiky. In the 1930s, it became popular to take echinacea extract to boost the immune system based on the mistaken belief that Native Americans took it to cure the common cold. No scientific studies have been able to corroborate this. Neither have any Native Americans. They actually chewed echinacea for sore throats since it has antimicrobial and analgesic properties.
Echinacea is in the same family as Thistles, Dandelions, Marigolds, Chrysanthemums, and Common Yarrow (Achillea millefolium).
Yarrow smells similar to Chrysanthemums and spreads by its root system like Wandering Jew or Quaking Aspens, making Yarrow as invasive as it is beautiful. The flowers grow in clusters called an inflorescence, similar to Lantanas or Sunflowers. What looks like a single sunflower is actually a cluster of hundreds of tiny flowers. The ones in the middle have short black petals, the ones around the edge each have a single long yellow petal.
Native Americans used Yarrow for toothaches, ear aches, headaches, and to reduce fever. They used oil from Yarrow as an anti-inflammatory and rubbed it on their chests to cure colds. It's also a diuretic that can reduce hypertension. The Zuni rubbed the oil on their feet before fire-walking ceremonies.
You can eat the leaves as a leaf vegetable like spinach or kale. In the garden, yarrow is extremely drought tolerant, attracts ladybugs, and improves the soil.
In book 11 of the Iliad, the centaur Chiron instructs Achilles to carry a bitter root to slay pain, the root of the yarrow. So, scientists named it after him (Achillea).
I had butterfly weed in my flower beds in La Porte. As the tiny Monarch caterpillars worked their way up the stalks, they would completely strip every leaf from the plant. By the time they were through, all I had were bare stalks that looked like a 'stick garden'. Then I would find the little cocoons everywhere. By the time the butterfly weed leafed out again, and the flowers had bloomed, the Monarch butterflies had emerged and enjoyed the nectar from the flowers. Made me feel like I had a butterfly farm! :)
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