Consider-the-Lilies Web Gallery
Four-leaved Milkweed
This cousin of the Common Milkweed, could perhaps be called the Uncommon Milkweed, at least in my neighborhood.
The Common M. is, well, common in the Shenandoah Valley in mid-summer. Every field and untended open spot will sport at least a few of the four-foot stalks.
This variety, prefers the higher elevations, however, so one must ascend from the Valley of Virginia to higher altitudes, and hike through wooded uplands....
Or you could do as I did: I found this plant growing some 1500 feet above the Valley, which is certainly higher; but no hiking was involved to find this lily. I was driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway on my way to a site and spotted this native, shorter, Asclepias from my car, gracing a shaded slope a few steps off the parkway shoulder.
Beyond
its habitat requirements and height of only 18", as the names tell us,
A. quadrafolia, also has a distinctive
foliage pattern.
Most members of this native family display several opposing pairs of leaves up the length of the stalk. As you can see this variety sports a single set of four leaves, in what botanists call a "false whorl."
(Leaves "1" and "3" and "2" and "4" are paired with their opposites; the pairs are separated by a small gap, thus not a "true" whorl.)
What a disappointment it must be to have an incomplete whorl!
But this Milkweed does share the other expected characteristics of the family: milky, viscous sap and the unusual thick-walled blossoms.
Here are the chunky, waxy flowers of the Four-leaved Milkweed, common to the family.
I find it interesting that although the sap is bitter, the nectar is sweet and eagerly sought by bees and butterflies.
Here is a honeybee enjoying a sip of nectar from the similarly shaped blossom of the Common Milkweed.
The well-named Butterfly Weed is a favorite flower of the Eastern Swallowtail Butterfly.
Although a cousin to the other Milkweed (A. tuberosa), with similar blossom structure, this variety not only is more colorful but also lacks the milky sap. (Asclepias but not Milkweed!)
Go to the Main Directory to consider more lilies of the field.