Sometimes there are seeds that are just too cool not to have their own post which is the case for butterfly weed seeds! Asclepias tuberosa is a beautiful orange plant in the garden and along roadsides but what is really neat is its method of seed dispersal. After pollination the seed pods begin to form. Inside those pods small seeds are being formed with fluff that serves to carry the seed on the wind. I was inspecting the garden yesterday when I noticed that one of these pods had opened. I picked it to collect the seeds for planting in other gardens and set it temporarily near our sink only to have the pod completely open and the fluff begin to fluff out on the kitchen counter.
Asclepias tuberosa (Orange butterfly weed) is a type of milkweed and is used by the larval stages of Monarch butterflies as a food source.
Needless to say my daughters enjoyed watching the seeds float down to the floor like paratroopers. (You know, I kind of did too!)Â This is a great time to plant the seeds in the garden. Just remove the fluff so they are easier to handle and place them in the soil with just a little bit of soil on top.
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I don't know if you have gotten this already but I am passing on the Meme award for your blog and have shared your site on mine. Thanks for sharing all your gardening adventures, your blog truly is a great resource for other gardeners.
Details are here http://shawnannsgarden.blogspot.com/2009/09/meme-award.html
Thanks again!
These plants are so cool! I used to love opening up their pods when I was young and play with their furry feathery innards!
I love them. I have been collecting seeds from my red/gold butterfly weed and now I see that my gold one is just about ready to set pods. I have little ones sprouting up in the gardens too! Did you have any Monarch Caterpillars on them this year? The silky stuff is just like the white thread the caterpillars spun to hand upside down by!
Dear Dave I have this pretty plant in my garden but for some reason I have never thought of just planting the seeds from the pods it has this time of year. Now that you have posted this .. I have to ! and I will give some to Martha from "Water Roots" who moved to Kingston .. I finally have a real life garden friend ? LOL
All of us love that fluffy floating thing we watch as we blow those seeds around .. we never grow up and forget that ?
Joy : )
Just don't let the girls carry them in the car or you'll have more fluff than you bargained for. 🙂
Shawn Ann,
Thanks for the compliments! I was assigned the same meme I think by Racquel. I usually don't participate in memes but since I have two memes to do I'd better get to it!
Miss Daisy,
I like the way you put it "furry feathery innards!"
Darla,
I haven't noticed a single monarch caterpillar but I have seen a few monarchs floating by. Once flew over my daughter yesterday and she just watched it. They are magical.
Joy,
I think plants produce seed exactly when they need to. We can cheat the system a tad with refrigeration and seed saving but so many plants would just rather us plant the seeds when they are produced. We'll have to have a asclepias seed launching party!
Tina,
I don't want to imagine that!
These ARE really cool seeds, Dave! Mine have never set pods, but I should have realized that of course the pods would be full of fluff and seeds like all the milkweeds we have (such as the monarch favorite A. incarnata) that DO set pods. Fun!!!
Thanks for the link back.
My incarnata seeds are all harvested. The tuberosa look like they'll pop in the next day or so.
Cameron
Love the feathers on the seeds. They really want to fly.
OFB,
The toys that mother nature gives us to play with are amazing aren't they?
Cameron,
You're welcome! I still have many more seeds to gather that haven't opened yet. Should be a fun afternoon when that happens!
Mary,
They are very neat!