highway milkweed

[jenc]

we noticed a lot of milkweed on the highways.
a lot.
we stopped and none of it is eaten, no eggs either. a monarch came by and landed, a female, but we didn't observe any egg laying.

can a monarch know if it's polluted?
most of the milkweed had wonderful looking seedpods...
but no leaves were disturbed.
perhaps the leaves are covered in exhaust and the females reject them?

[Keith Petrosky]

That could be the reason, or mabye it was the milkweed they dont prefer, common milkweed comes in green stemmed and red stemmed, I think they avoid the red stemmed.