Asclepias californica
Asclepias californica | |
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Scientific classification ![]() | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Clade: | Asterids |
Order: | Gentianales |
Family: | Apocynaceae |
Genus: | Asclepias |
Species: | A. californica
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Binomial name | |
Asclepias californica |
Asclepias californica is a species of milkweed known by the common name California milkweed. It grows throughout lower northern, central and southern California.
Description
[edit]Asclepias californica is native to California and northern Baja California. It is a flowering perennial with thick, white, woolly stems which bend or run along the ground. The plentiful, hanging flowers are rounded structures with reflexed corollas and starlike arrays of bulbous anthers.
The flowers are dark purple.[1] It grows on dry slopes.[2]
Uses
[edit]This plant was eaten as candy by the Kawaiisu tribes of indigenous California; the milky sap within the leaves is flavorful and chewy when cooked, but can be poisonous when raw.[citation needed]
Butterflies
[edit]Asclepias californica is an important monarch butterfly caterpillar host plant, and chrysalis habitat plant. The cardiac glycosides caterpillars ingest from the plant are retained in the butterfly, making it unpalatable to predators.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ "Jepson eFlora: Asclepias californica". Jepson Herbaria of the University of California at Berkeley.
- ^ "Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center - The University of Texas at Austin". www.wildflower.org. Retrieved 2022-03-18.
- ^ Graf, Michael (1999). Plants of the Tahoe Basin: Flowering Plants, Trees, and Ferns : a Photographic Guide. University of California Press. pp. 98. ISBN 978-0-520-21583-2.
External links
[edit]- Calflora Database: Asclepias californica (California milkweed)
- Jepson Manual Treatment: Asclepias californica
- University of Michigan, Dearborn: Ethnobotany: Asclepias californica
- Asclepias californica Photo gallery
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- NatureServe secure species
- Asclepias
- Flora of California
- Flora of Baja California
- Flora of the Sonoran Deserts
- Flora of the California desert regions
- Flora of the Sierra Nevada (United States)
- Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands
- Natural history of the Colorado Desert
- Natural history of the Mojave Desert
- Natural history of the Peninsular Ranges
- Natural history of the Santa Monica Mountains
- Natural history of the Transverse Ranges
- Garden plants of North America
- Butterfly food plants
- Apocynaceae stubs