Asclepias purpurascens L.
Family: Apocynaceae
Purple Milkweed
Asclepias purpurascens image
From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

Infrequent throughout the state. Usually only one or a few plants are found together. It has various habitats. The most common one is a rather dry, and usually somewhat sandy soil in open woodland and along roadsides. Also found in damp, open woodland about swamps and lakes and even in tamarack bogs.

Stems stout, erect, to 1 m, puberulent; lvs elliptic to ovate-oblong, 10-15 cm, hairy beneath, broadly cuneate to a petiole 8-25 mm; umbels few or one, terminal and subterminal, many-fld, on peduncles to 5 cm; cor normally purple, its lobes 7-10 mm; hoods pale purple, 5-7 mm, surpassing the gynostegium, without lateral teeth but often somewhat widened near the middle; horns short, flat, incurved; fr downy, without processes. Dry soil; s. N.H. to Va., w. to Wis., Io., Kans., and Okla. June, July.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Asclepias purpurascens image
Asclepias purpurascens image
Asclepias purpurascens image
Kurt Stueber  
Asclepias purpurascens image
Kurt Stueber  
Asclepias purpurascens image
Asclepias purpurascens image
Asclepias purpurascens image
John Hilty  
Asclepias purpurascens image
John Hilty  
Asclepias purpurascens image
Peter Gorman