Butterfly Milkweed
Asclepias tuberosa
Orange flowers from May into August, worked by brown-belted bumble bees and eastern carpenter bees. Monarch caterpillars feed on its leaves. It grows wild in 64 of Kentucky’s 120 counties.
- Light
- Part shade to full sun
- Soil
- Dry to moist soil
- Size
- 1.5 ft to 2 ft tall, 1.2 ft wide
- Flowers
- Orange, yellow and red, May to Aug
- Leaves
- Deciduous
- Roots
- A taproot; wants 16 in of soil
- Kind
- Wildflower
At its grown size
in flowerfruit or seedfall colorbare for winter
What it feeds
- Butterflies
- Host plant for the Monarch
- Caterpillars
- 13 kinds of caterpillars
- Bees
- 59 kinds of native bees
- On its flowers
- Brown-belted bumble bee (Bombus griseocollis), Eastern carpenter bee (Xylocopa virginica), Southern plains bumble bee (Bombus fraternus), Giant resin bee (Megachile sculpturalis)
Grows well with
Robin's-plantain
New Jersey Tea
Bluestem Goldenrod
Calico Aster
Narrowleaf Sundrops
Wild Geranium
Black Huckleberry
Sweet Goldenrod
Facts from the Quercus record for Asclepias tuberosa.