I had a bumper crop of Asclepias syriaca fruit last year. Compared to the one fruit I have had in the previous eight years, any crop is surprising. I now wish I had spent some time photographing the insects on the flowers last year, as I have done before. I have no idea what insect did the pollinating.
I mentioned in a post in 2018 that the flower buds are edible, if you have a non-bitter variety. The almost-opening flower buds are delicious when boiled. From three to five minutes is quite enough to get them very tender. Definitely a gourmet vegetable with just a little dressing of oil and a sprinkle of salt.
I will probably take more photos of the flowers this year and add them here. For now, there are a few photos on that 2018 post.
UPDATED 24/06/2023
The bitter varieties may be poisonous and are thought to be hybrids with other species that occur in their natural range in the middle and eastern parts of the USA and Canada. Many North Americans now believe that all milkweed is poisonous. Some species are toxic but many are edible and others medicinal. Native Americans and colonists in the area used milkweed extensively. When the Omaha and Pawnee first saw cabbage being boiled, they called it "white man's Asclepias syriaca", Omaha: "waḣta waḣe", Pawnee: "karípiku tsahiks-taka".
I am also growing the much smaller Asclepias tuberosa, the pleurisy root. I hope I can get fruit off that this year as they are also edible. The flowers have the same strange structure but are a brilliant orange.
Back to the common milkweed, the flowers of Asclepias syriaca are also delightfully fragrant in the evening. In Canada, a fine brown sugar has been made from shaking out the abundant nectar after pollinators are kept from the flowers for a while. It was then boiled down to concentrate it, a similar process to manufacturing maple syrup and maple sugar. I have not done that as it seems cruel to the multitude of different types of pollinators that visit the flowers. A textile fibre can be obtained from the stems but I have not tried doing that yet because of laziness.
This one plant had eight fruit and several other stalks had about the same between them. I harvested all of the ones from this stalk and took another photo. The white marks are where latex has come out of damage caused by gripping the fruit with my fingers while I cut the stalks. I am not sure what to call the fuzz-covered ornamentation on the surface of the fruit, they remind me of the feet of starfish or the villi of human intestines. They are clearly quite fragile.
I then trimmed the stalks off and cut four of the pods lengthwise and the remaining four widthways. The white parts would develop into the seeds and the silky fluff surrounding the seeds, if they had been left to ripen.
In this photo you can see many of the immature seeds have been sliced through neatly. This is because I invested a few pounds in buying proper razor blades with little handles on one side from a microscope supply store.
Unfortunately, I did all this before breakfast and forgot to weigh them before cooking them. They are very light with a very low density. As you can see from the internal structures, there is a lot of airy space within the pod. They still float high in the water even when cut open.
Eight pods, harvested at 4 to 6 cm long on the 25th of August 2022, flower remains removed and the stalk trimmed off before rinsing in water. Each pod sliced in half, some lengthways and some widthways. Boiled vigorously for 6 minutes. Delicious, a light sweetness, no bitterness and a delicate but distinct flavour. Several different textures from the different parts. Not as good as the flower buds but still a gourmet vegetable. The water in which the pods were boiled was sweet but not in a sugary way, no bitterness at all.
Four pods harvested at 7 to 7.5cm long on the 31st of August 2022 and the insides removed, tough pods discarded. Seeds still very pale and unripe. Boiled for seven minutes. The silk was slightly chewy but the seeds were very tender. Mild green bean taste. The water it was boiled in had the slightly sweet taste of the buds and shoots. Edible but not delightful.
I left two pods on the plant to ripen and produce fluff and seeds. Unfortunately, last September and October were too cold and wet and dark. The pods never ripened.
I have cleared a lot of shrubbery away from the garden so that the plants I am concentrating on can get more light. The milkweed is enjoying it very much and the stalks are much more robust than in previous years with large solid leaves. It seems to be staying much shorter as well, not striving to grow taller than its crowded neighbours. I hope I can get more pods this year and ripen some to get the seed fluff. It can be bought from North American growers but it is so not dense that postage would be prohibitive for a large quantity.
The plant spread to produce a little clump inside the compost heap a few years ago . It produced blanched stalks that looked very like white asparagus spears. Three sprouts harvested on the 6th of May, when they had reached about 10cm (4 inch) height above the compost. Total length was 22-24cm and total weight 19g. Cut into 5cm sections and placed in boiling water, simmered for 10 minutes. Smelled of mild but nice vegetables while cooking, no particular or peculiar smell. Taste was mildly sweet and rich but no particular strong flavour. Succulent and tender, very comparable to fine small asparagus in texture. Slight fibrous texture lower in the stem but not stringy and easily chewed. There was a slight bitterness to the very lowest 2cm of the stem which changed to sweetness after a drink of water. I would definitely eat more if I had them. I had photos but they were just subtle variations of white, so not much point including them here.
This year, the plant produced more sprouts in the compost heap but found a way out to the sunlight. I dug them out with as much mature compost as I could. I filled the hole left by digging up the kusagi tree. We then had several weeks of heatwave with no rain at all. They have put up some new shoots. I have watered them a lot but they have still wilted a few times in the scorching sun of Manchester.
UPDATE 11/07/2023: I took a short video this morning of a bumblebee on the milkweed flowers.
The entry for common milkweed from my work-in-progress on the human uses of the asclepiads.
Asclepias syriaca L.
North America, Missouri River, Omaha-Ponca: "Waḣta".¹
Missouri River, Winnebago: "Mahińtsh".¹
Missouri River, Pawnee: "Karípiku".¹
North America, Chippewa: "Inĭ'nĭwŭnj" (= man-like).²
North America: "Common Milkweed", "Silkweed", "Wild Cotton", "Virginian Swallow-wort".³
This plant is not from Syria. The specific name syriaca was given by Linnaeus in 1753 ⁴ despite the fact that he knew the habitat of the plant was Virginia, on the east coast of North America. The confusion came from this plant being described by Cornut in 1635 ⁵ as Apocynum maius syriacum rectum. Cornut was relying on a defective and incomplete (manca sit & mutila) description by Clusius who in 1601 had named a plant from Egypt, Syria and Constantinople (Istanbul) as Apocynum syriacum.⁶ That Syrian plant is now known as Calotropis procera. This led to much confusion as to the origins of Asclepias syriaca. Möller, a Westphalian cultivator in 1800 assumed it had been introduced to Europe from the Middle East during the crusades (11th to 13th centuries) but was also indigenous to North America. He even called it the Syrian Silk-Plant.⁷ References are still made on the internet to this plant being cultivated in Syria for the seed floss. Confusion is perpetuated by statements in old books such as this one from 1897: "Syria, introduced and cultivated for the stem fibre for making muslin and coloured fabrics."⁸ It does not help that Calotropis procera is also used for both a soft stem fibre for making textiles and fluffy seed pod fibre for stuffing pillows and cushions. Calotropis is, however, famously poisonous and caustic.
North America, Missouri River, Omaha-Ponca, boiled young sprouts eaten like asparagus sprouts in early spring. Later in the year clusters of floral buds and young fruit (while firm and green) are also eaten boiled. When the Omaha and Pawnee first saw cabbage being boiled, they called it "white man's Asclepias syriaca", Omaha: "waḣta waḣe", Pawnee: "karípiku tsahiks-taka".¹
North America, Chippewa, flowers cut up and stewed, eaten like preserves. Sometimes eaten before a feast so more food could be eaten.²
North America, young bud sprouts and young fruit eaten.⁹ Americas, Virginia colonies, both natives and European colonists ate the boiled young shoots and flowers.¹⁰ Young shoots an excellent substitute for asparagus.³ Canada, French eat shoots as asparagus and make a fine brown sugar from the flower nectar by boiling. Upper Platte Sioux boiled the young pods with buffalo meat.¹¹ Shoots and young fruit edible and delicious. Bitterness only found in plants from north-eastern parts of the US. Shoots collected in Wisconsin and Michigan did not need water changes to remove bitterness.¹² Southern Appalachia, natives ate young shoots and cooked tuberous roots.¹³
Between 1788 and 1804 Martin Sessé and José Mariano Mociño collected plants that would later be described in the Flora Mexicana¹⁴ and Plantae Novae Hispaniae.¹⁵ They included Asclepias syriaca but as it does not occur in Mexico I assume their plant was a similar species. Talayote is a common name in Mexico for the edible fruitpods of various species of asclepiad, including Asclepias, Gonolobus, Matelea and Ruehssia. They remarked:
"Use. Follicles called Tlaloyotl by the natives who eat it."
In the original Latin:
"Usus. Folliculi ab Indigenis Tlaloyotl nuncupati ipsis esculenti sunt."¹⁵
North America, Chippewa, half of a root broken up in a pint of boiling water. A tablespoon of the medicine in every liquid meal to produce a flow of milk in nursing women.²
Juice (latex?) applied to ulcers and recent wounds to form a protective adhesive pellicle (thin film or skin) and promote healing. Fluid extract of fresh tuber vs. amenorrhoea, dropsy, urinary retention, asthma, dyspepsia, cough, dyspnoea in a dose of 10 drops to a fluid drachm (3.7 ml). Diuretic, diaphoretic, lowers action of heart.³ Latex for chewing gum. Dried root medicinal as alterative anodyne.⁹ North America, Whitefolk, root as tonic, diuretic, alterative, emmenagogue, purgative and emetic.²
Americas, Virginia colonies, John Winthrop (in the Americas from 1630 to 1649) wrote a letter mentioning the pods being used for stuffing pillows and cushions.¹⁰ United States, Salem, from 1862 Miss Margaret Gerrish span thread from the plant and made many-coloured purses, workbags and socks.⁸ In 1800 Möller described many uses for the plant as a crop in Europe. Hats made from one-third floss and two-thirds hare's down were very light and soft. Floss also used in beds, coverlets and pillows which are light and convenient for travelling. Floss can be spun when mixed with flax, wool, etc. Stalks yielded a good paper. France, a factory making articles from the floss was established in Paris in 1760. Was used in Lausanne to make candlewicks.⁷ Stem gives useful fibre.⁹
North America, Chippewa, root combined with root fibres of Eupatorium perfoliatum (Asteraceae) as a charm attached to whistles for calling deer.²
¹ Gilmore, MR "Asclepiadaceae" in "Uses of plants by the Indians of the Missouri River region" (1919, Washington, Government Printing Office) 109-110 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/76814#page/103/mode/1up Accessed 2/5/2020
² Densmore, F "Uses of Plants by the Chippewa Indians" Extract from the Forty-Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1928) 44: 273-379 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/151430#page/27/mode/1up Accessed 2/5/2020
³ Millspaugh, CF "Medicinal Plants an Illustrated and Descriptive Guide to Plants Indigenous to and Naturalized in the United States which are used in Medicine" (1892, John C. Yorston & Co., Philadelphia) 2: 134 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/28894#page/147/mode/1up
⁴ Linnaeus, C "Species Plantarum,..." (1753, Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm) https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/84235#page/228/mode/1up
⁵ Cornut, J-P "Canadensium Plantarum aliarumque nondum editarum, Historia..." (1635, Simonem le Moyne, Paris) https://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/viewer/13506/?offset=#page=107&viewer=picture&o=search&n=0&q=syriac
⁶ Clusius, C "Rariorum Plantarum Historia." (1601, Plantiniana, Ioannem Moretum, Antwerp) Lib V. 87-88 Cap. IIII https://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/viewer/13800/?offset=#page=464&viewer=picture&o=bookmark&n=0&q=
⁷ Möller, JA "IX. On the Cultivation and Use of the Syrian Silk-Plant." The Philosophical Magazine (1800) VIII: 149-154 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/53001#page/167/mode/1up
⁸ Dodge, CR "A Descriptive Catalogue of Useful Fiber Plants of the World" (1897, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington) 70 https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofecon0000jcth/page/54/mode/2up
⁹ Uphof JCTh "The Dictionary of Economic Plants" 2nd Ed. (1968, Lehre: J. Cramer) 54 https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofecon0000jcth/page/54/mode/2up
¹⁰ Hussey, JS "Some Useful Plants of Early New England" Economic Botany (1974) 28(3): 311-337 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4253521 Accessed 25/4/2020
¹¹ Hedrick, UP "Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants." Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919, II (1919, Albany) 71 https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/65930#page/85/mode/1up
¹² Thayer, S "The Milkweed Phenonemon; You Most Certainly Cannot Believe Everything You Read" Forager's Harvest Newsletter (2001) 1(2): ? http://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/The_Forager/milkweed.htm Retrieved 25/12/2011
¹³ Core, EL "Ethnobotany of the Southern Appalachian Aborigines" Economic Botany (1967) 21(3): 198-214 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4252878 Accessed 24/4/2020
¹⁴ Sessé, M & Mociño, IM "Flora Mexicana" (dated 1887, though this has been debated) https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5875782#page/85/mode/1up Accessed 23/05/20
¹⁵ Sessé, M & Mociño, IM "Plantæ Novæ Hispaniæ" Editio Secunda (1893)
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/120055#page/50/mode/1up Accessed 23/05/20