#milkweek

Yes, tomorrow is the time to show your love how much you care, spending money on dinner, desert and flowers.  It is also the perfect time to show how much you care about the dwindling Monarch population, by planting their favorite food, the Asclepias cordifloria, also known popularly as the Heart-leaved Milkweed.  The Monarch diet consists overwhelmingly of varieties of the Milkweed plant, as can be seen in the third photo of a Monarch on the Asclepias speciosa. There are approximately 140 varieties of milkweed in addition to the heart-leaved, such as dogbane,   antelope horned, swamp and slim, California and horsetail, to name a few.  Asclepias was named by Linneaus after the Ancient Greek god representing medicine, as many varieties have medicinal properties, notably as a purgative. Cordifloria comes from the Latin words cor, cordis meaning heart and flos, floris meaning flower.  Milkweed also contains cardiac glycoside poisons, which have been used by South American tribes on the tips of arrows and spears.  

While you won't get any points for bringing home a bouquet of Heart-leaved milkweed flowers, planting seeds now in most of North America and reaping the benefits of a Monarch Butterfly garden later in the year will surely be rewarded.  

Image of milkweed and monarch courtesy Tony Frates, used with permission under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.

GIF of the monarch migration courtesy Harald Suepfle, via Wikipedia, also used with permission under a Creative Commons license.