A tall downy plant with slightly drooping, purplish to pink flower clusters.

1/2" wide; petals 5, reflexed; conspicuous central crown divided into 5 hoods; clusters 2" wide.

4-10" long, opposite, broad-oblong, light green with gray down beneath; exuding milky sap when bruised.

Rough-textured pod, opening along one side, containing many overlapping seeds, each with a tuft of silky hairs.

2-6'.

June-August.

Old fields, roadsides, and waste places

This species differs from the similar showy Milkweed (A.speciosa) in its longer hoods, which are 1/4-3/8" long; those of Showy Milkweed are 1/2-5/8" long. The plant contains cardiac glycosides, allied to those in Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) of the figwort family (Scropulariaceae), used in treating some heart diseases. These glycosides, when absorbed by Monarch butterfly larvae whose sole source of food is milkweed foliage, make the larvae and adult butterflies toxic to birds and other predators. Linnaeus, who named this species, mistakenly thought that it was from Syria, hence the species name.