With the start of October comes our slow turning towards the cold season. My yard is peppered with acorns, leaves are starting to yellow, and many wildflowers are noticeable now more for their striking seed pods than their colorful blooms. One of my favorites (is it weird to have favorite seed pods?) are the seed pods of the milkweed genus (Asclepias). 

One of our common native milkweeds is butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), also known as orange milkweed. Where it is present in large numbers, butterfly weed can seemingly set a field ablaze with its bright orange flowers in July. Check out this previous blog post on the Baltimore checkerspot butterfly to see photos of orange milkweed in bloom. Although butterfly weed is in the same genus as common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), it is unique to the milkweeds in that it is the only native species in that group with alternate leaves. 

If you happened upon a stand of butterfly weed today, however, you would find a very different appearance. Gone are the leaves, and where once there were bold colored blossoms, now remain only a handful of elongated seed pods. When fully mature, the pods (technically referred to as follicles) split open lengthwise to reveal overlapping rows of tufted seeds inside. Each seed bears a cluster of white, silky, filament-like hairs that will help them disperse on the wind.