Reddish variety of common milkweed

[John Beaulieu]

Greetings to Monarch Watch members. I have just joined and have a question about a variety of milkweed growing here in central Ontario. I had asked at a Monarch workshop in Kingston, ON last summer but nobody knew about this variety. About half of the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) that are found around here have darker reddish/purple stalks with some redder veining in the leaves. Otherwise the plants are identical to the normal all-green common milkweed. What has really made me wonder about this particular variety is that we NEVER find Monarch eggs or catepillars on the reddish stemmed plants. I have looked at photos of 40 species of Asclepias and this particular variety is not one of the other species (including red and purple milkweeds). As I say... it iseems to be a reddish clone of A. syriaca. Has anyone else in Ontario (or anywhere else) noticed this?

[Keith Petrosky]

I think thats dogbane, and it looks almost identical to common milkweed. Monarchs dont eat that.

[John Beaulieu]

Keith
Thanks for the reply. I checked out some dogbane sites and this is not my mystery milkweed. The stems are similar but the dogbane is more branching. The dogbane has thin long pods, where my reddish stemmed milkweed has pods identical to A. syriaca.
Thanks, anyway. I will take some photos this year. Is there a way of posting them to this group?

[Keith Petrosky]

Upload your photos to www.photobucket.com and paste the link of your picture in your post so we can all see them.

[Jim]

Are you sure it's not A. sullivantii:



Here's a little more info:

http://www.monarchwatch.org/milkweed/guide/sulliv.htm

Please send/post photos and we'll try to get it identified for you. You can't upload images directly through this forum, but if you have them hosted elsewhere you can include them in your post or provide a link to them.

Hope this helps!

[John Beaulieu]

Jim

I have not knowingly seen A. sullivantii, but the Monarch Watch chart for Canadian milkweed shows it as rare in Ontario. In the photo you sent, the stem still appeared to be a green with no hint of the red colour. I hope I can soon get out and find some mature plants to get a good photo of my mystery reddish milkweed.

Thanks,
John

[Chip]

I am familiar with the color form of the common milkweed you are referring to.

Monarchs feed quite well on this type of milkweed - it is the common milkweed but is less fleshy and seems more ridgid. This form appears to increase in frequency as one goes from the midwest to the east and is the only milkweed phenotype I've seen in some locations in the east.

I really don't know whether this form is a genetic type or represents some type of response to soils, drainage, or nutirents. We get both types here isn eastern KS by the reddish form is decidedly less common.

It might be worthwhile mapping the distribution of both types in your area relative to soil type and other environmental variables.

[John Beaulieu]

I finally got out to the area where I see both types of common milkweed, to get a photo of the red-stem version. Here in the Simcoe County area (central Ontario,Canada, about 55 miles north of Toronto) the milkweed has just started to bloom. I have always associated the arrival of Monarchs with the start of milkweed flowering. This year has held true, as I saw my first Monarch yesterday (June 26th) while shooting the milkweed. I went to a conservation area known as The Copeland Forest, about a 20 minute drive NE of Midhurst. There is a large meadow filled with lots of common milkweed, both green and red stemmed. I took a photo of both types and have created an album at http://photobucket.com/albums/a240/JohnBeaulieu/ so Monarch Watch members could see and possibly make comments on this red stem variety, which so far, I have never found Monarch caterpillars on. They always choose the green-stem variety. I will pay more attention this year, though.
I also saw my first wild, Swamp Milkweed at a pond on the same property. I'm sure I have seen it, but never knew what it was. Now that I am getting involved with Monarchs, I am looking closer and learning more. Photos of the swamp milkweed and that first monarch are also at the photo site. The monarch was feeding on both types of common milkweed.

[pjvanee]

John...it has been a few years since your last posting on the red stemmed common milkweed, but I found the same plants growing alongside the more common green stemmed variety on a beach in northern Michigan. I spent a long time researching the red stemmed mystery milkweed, and eventually ended up at your posting. Do you have any more information on the red stemmed plant? Is it simply a different variety of the common milkweed (like the pink vs white flowered swamp milkweed)? Or do the stems turn red due to growing conditions (both varieties were growing side by side on the beach).

I will try to collect seeds from the red stemmed variety to see if I get red stemmed seedlings. The red stemmed plants were very pretty, and probably would be even prettier not growing on a dry wind-swept beach!

PS.....I used a few of the red veined leaves as caterpillar food, and the cats readily ate it.

[Mona Miller]

I just came back from searching for caterpillars in a field in Reston, VA. There is also green and red stemmed common milkweed there. It must be a slightly different version of common milkweed.

Gary Stell has a red stemmed version in his pictures:
http://www.asclepias.org/syriaca.html

Maybe like the swamp milkweed that has softer leaves:
Asclepias incarnata (Swamp Milkweed)
http://www.monarchwatch.org/milkweed/guide/incar.htm
Asclepias incarnata pulchra
http://www.asclepias.org/pulchra.html

I also saw Cynanchum laeve Sand (Blue) Vine growing in the same field.

Did a quick search and found this article:
http://www.news.appstate.edu/2010/06/30 ... sunscreen/
Researchers study plants’ natural sunscreen
Posted June 30, 2010 at 10:06 am · By ASU News
Filed under Biology, General, Research, Today