Ascelepias tuberosa                                                          Photo Bill Chitty ©

Also known as butterfly weed or butterfly milkweed, this plant blooms from May through August in North Florida. The blooms attract butterflies and other insects, and though the stems do not have the milky sap of some of the other milkweeds, this plant is toxic to livestock.

Indians chewed the root of this plant as a cure for pleurisy and other lung ailments, and the historical name for this plant was Pleurisy Root.

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