Asclepias verticillata — Edible Plant Database

What to Eat

Edible parts: Leaves, Root, Seeds, Caution

Young buds are eaten.

Known Hazards

This species can reproduce vegetatively and does not depend on pollinators, but it does produce some nectar, mostly in the early evening hours. Insect visitors to the plant include wasps, honeybees, and lepidopterans such as moths and the cabbage white. Like other milkweed species, this plant is a host plant for the monarch butterfly whose caterpillars feed on the leaves. The plant is toxic to livestock.

Where to Find It

It is a temperate to tropical plant.

Central America, Mexico, North America, USA,

Countries: Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Jamaica, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Trinidad & Tobago, United States, St Vincent

How to Identify

A temperate to tropical herb growing 10 cm tall in the family Apocynaceae.

How to Grow

Plants can be grown from seed or cuttings.

Medicinal Uses

It was used as a medicinal plant by Native American peoples. The Choctaw used it to treat snakebite, the Lakota and Hopi used it to increase breast milk in nursing mothers, and the Navajo used it for nose and throat problems.

Wikipedia

Source ↗

Asclepias verticillata, the whorled milkweed, eastern whorled milkweed, or horsetail milkweed, is a species of milkweed native to most of eastern North America and parts of western Canada and the United States.

Notes

There are 100 Asclepias species.

Names & Synonyms

Asclepias galioides KunthAsclepias linifolia KunthAsclepias parviflora Leconte ex Decne.Asclepias verticillata var. galioides (Kunth) Decne.Asclepias verticillata var. leptophylla Torr.Asclepias verticillata var. linifolia (Kunth) Decne.

References (2)

Beckstrom-Sternberg, Stephen M., and James A. Duke. "The Foodplant Database." http://probe.nalusda.gov:8300/cgi-bin/browse/foodplantdb.(ACEDB version 4.0 - data version July 1994) (As Asclepias galioides)
Plants for a Future database, The Field, Penpol, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0NG, UK. http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/ (As Asclepias galioides)