I'm on vacation, so only a short written accompaniment today. – Daniel
These two images are part of a larger series posted on Flickr by Maureen from Montana (aka MontanaRaven@Flickr). To see the whole set, visit Milkweed Mother. If you'd like to see these two images in particular, visit here and here. The images were submitted to BPotD via the BPotD Flickr Group Pool. Thanks again, Maureen (Maureen's weblog: raven's nest)!
I'm fairly certain this is Asclepias speciosa and not Asclepias syriaca – I'm basing my identification on the seed morphology and barely discernible pattern of venation on the leaves (you need to see the other photographs in the Flickr set for this information). It's very possible that I've misidentified it, though. The USDA Plants Database has more information and photographs: Asclepias speciosa.
Asclepias speciosa - Z2 - RHS Index of Garden Plants, Griffiths
These are gorgeous photographs!
Returning here a year later, I’m again struck by these stunning photographs.
I have many memories reaching back into childhood, of finding milkweed plants in seed, during Fall excursions into rural Ontario. We’d find them growing along fences and in open fields. I remember occasionally standing in a patch of these plants, the air floating with their seeds.
When we came across pods that were ripe and open, with seeds starting to take flight, we couldn’t resist helping the process along by running a thumb down the inside of the pod and pushing the seeds into the air. We’d love that process, the sensory pleasure of it. The hairs or filaments that carry the seeds have a lovely soft silky texture, and when we pushed them with a thumb they’d sort of puff open quite suddenly, as if they’d been just biding their time until they could explode into the air. Then we’d soon be surrounded with the floating white silk.
If we came across young, still-green pods, we’d break a couple open. The torpedo-shaped bundle of moist seeds inside remind me of a fish – the seeds overlap in rows, like fish scales.
As a child, it was some time before I recognized what a milkweed plant looked like in bloom. The flowers were a little surprising; it was hard to imagine, by the look of them, that they would produce those large pods packed tight with fluff and seeds.