Milkweed flowers
On a walk yesterday, I found common milkweed starting to bloom in a meadow, and today I found two other species blooming:
Common milkweed
Swamp milkweed
Butterfly milkweed
The common milkweed was in a meadow where I was looking for Baltimore Checkerspot (link). The other two are in the same spot where I found willow-herb last year. Willow-herb wasn’t blooming yet, but there were many Black-eyed Susan in bloom – for another post.
How gratifying that you found three milkweed species, each with flowers of a different color, on one walk.
Almost! 🙂 I found the common milkweed one day before, in a different location. But different colors were the reason For posting them together.
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Thanks, I stopped by.
How lucky you are ! Very nice photos 🌞
I am grateful I found them 🙂
Very nice Tom! And very colorful!!
Thanks, Reed- for color, butterfly milkweed is hard to beat.
And did you see checkerspots and turtleheads? I can not get over the diversity you have. I love these photos, especially the one of the butterfly weed. Little orange stars!
Not many checkerspots, sadly. The fooplant at that site isn’t turtlehead, it’s plantain. That’s more common for Baltimores around here. I just took a walk in the backyard to check out the meadow, and I found a Banded Hairstreak, I used to have them i my yard every year, now they’re back.
I’ve gone back to take more images of the butterfly weed – I love that orange color. 🙂
That sent me to the archives and sure enough, Chelone isn’t the only host plant, or at least, it isn’t in your area as you said. I didn’t know that! That is very good news for the species because I have watched populations of Chelone disappear. Maybe our populations of checkerspot can adapt. We have plenty of plantain!
That is awesome news about the banded hairstreak.
The flowers of the common milkweed look somewhat like those of our whorled and slim milkweeds, although they’re arranged differently. I’ve never seen the common or the swamp — so many species! I like the butterfly milkweed much more than the tropical milkweed that grows here; the tropical’s red and yellow combination is all right, but it always seems a little garish. I was lucky to find a lot of the butterfly milkweed this year, although the spot where I found huge stands of it last year still is closed. Sigh.
It was gratifying to find three species in two locations one day after another. ::) Although they call it butterfly milkweed, I’ve seen many more butterflies at common milkweed. I didn’t see any butterflies at these butterfly milkweed flowers. Can’t beat the colors, though!