Pinewoods milkweed (Asclepias humistrata) by Eleanor Dietrich

Flower Friday: Pinewoods milkweed

Flower Friday

Also known as sandhill or purple milkweed, pinewoods milkweed (Asclepias humistrata) is a robust perennial #wildflower with umbels of distinct pinkish-white to pale purple flowers. Its large leaves are thick and dull grayish-green with conspicuous pink to lavender veins. Pinewoods milkweed occurs naturally in sandhills, scrub and dry, ruderal areas. It blooms in spring and summer, attracting many pollinators including wasps and butterflies, and is the larval host plant of monarch and queen butterflies.

Shop

Browse the Flower Shop Let everyone know you’re a fan of Florida’s native wildflowers. We have seeds a plenty for your landscape, and accessories for the garden. Wildflowers for home and garden Let them know… where not to mow! Protect your roadside wildflowers and help them set seed for the future by displaying this 9 x…

Hummingbird clearwing (Hemaris thysbe) on Asclepias incarnata

Flower Friday: Swamp milkweed

Flower Friday

Pink milkweed is an erect, herbaceous perennial wildflower with showy pink flowers. It occurs naturally in floodplain swamps, hydric hammocks, wet pine flatwoods and marshes. It typically blooms in summer and attracts many pollinators. It is a larval host plant for Monarch, Queen and Soldier butterfly caterpillars.

taylors

Member profile: Walter and Karin Taylor

Member profile

You will find Walter and Karin Taylor at most Florida Wildflower Foundation and Florida Native Plant Society events, many times volunteering their time to speak to others or sit at information tables and promote wildflowers. They are longtime residents of Florida and experts on wildflowers, with Walter having authored numerous field guides that have become indispensable to Florida wildflower enthusiasts.

Grow Wildflowers

See how Resources Plant sources Wildflowers, Naturally! Start with 20 Easy Wildflowers With interest mounting in using wildflowers in urban landscapes, there is a huge demand for information for those new to Florida’s native plants. Enter “20 Easy-to-Grow Wildflowers.” The 24-page magazine features a selection of 20 “tried and true” wildflowers that are easy to…

Welcome Baker’s tickseed

News

by Claudia Larsen Follow this new species’ journey from discovery to naming Recently discovered in North Florida’s Jackson County, Coreopsis bakeri has gone undetected for years because of its resemblance to our common lanceleaf tickseed (Coreopsis lanceolata). Several years of scientific study finally proved that, indeed, it is has been isolated long enough to have…

Chris delivers his pollinator pots to FWF staff.

Create a pollinator garden in a pot!

News, Planting

Chris Waltz, volunteer extraordinaire and wildflower-gardening enthusiast, was inspired by people saying they can’t grow natives because they live in an apartment, condo, or other small space. He started thinking: They grow houseplants and annuals; why can’t they grow natives the same way? The result? A “pollinator garden in a pot.”

Xerces milkweeds conservation guide cover

Review of Xerces Society’s Milkweed Guide

News, Pollinators

Many of us are aware of the monarch’s population decline that has been well documented by researchers. Weather, habitat destruction of overwintering grounds in California and Mexico, and loss of food source on migration routes have caused great concern in the last few years. The Xerces Society’s insight into factors that influence monarch butterfly populations has pointed to many things we cannot control. However, the increased production and planting of the monarch food plants, milkweeds, is certainly an environmental movement that can be achieved on a large scale in the United States.

Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) by Mary Keim

Flower Friday: Butterfly milkweed

Flower Friday

Butterfly milkweed is a perennial that produces large, showy clusters of bright orange to reddish flowers from spring through fall. It occurs naturally in sandhills, pine flatwoods, and other sandy uplands as well as along sunny roadsides. It is an exception to the Asclepias genus in that its stem does not contain the milky latex that distinguishes the rest of the genus and gives it the common name “milkweed.”

Try spiderwort blossoms for an interesting cake decoration. Photo by Claudia Larsen

Ethnobotany of Wildflowers

Learn

Imagine yourself as a native Indian or early explorer 500 hundred years ago trying to survive in Florida. The better part of your day was probably spent hunting or gathering for daily sustenance, making tools and building shelters. Although artifacts are recovered by archeologists, the list of plants used for food, medicine and spiritual purposes was generally passed down by word of mouth through generations of early Floridians. There is quite a compendium of knowledge about early uses of native trees and shrubs, but what about wildflowers?

gaillardia-variations

Surprise colors from your favorite plants

Learn

Don’t let the title scare you off! I’ve been wondering why plants of the same species sometimes occur in different colors, so I did a little research. As you can see from my photos, some common flowers that have appeared in my garden are red and yellow forms of milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and blanketflower (Gaillardia puchella). I also have red, pink and white tropical sage (Salvia coccinea), which I’m sure many of you have also grown. Do you ever have white flower forms of your typically blue spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) or Stokes’ aster (Stokesia laevis)? Wonder what’s going on?