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Notes: Eloise Butler first introduced this plant to the Garden in 1908 with plants obtained from Kelsey's Nurseries. This plant was listed on Martha Crone's 1951 inventory of plants in the Garden at that time. A new planting was established in 2006 by Garden Curator Susan Wilkins. It is native to Minnesota generally in the eastern 2/3rds of the state, north as far as Cass County.

Eloise Butler wrote this about Milkweeds: "Most of the milkweeds, as the term implies, are furnished with a copious, milky juice. Crawling insects are likely to be covered and impaled by this sticky fluid, which exudes from wounds made by their sharp claws, as they scale the stems of the plants, and thus prevents them from rifling the nectar provided by the flowers for the pollen-distributing, hairy-bodied flying insects. Wonderful are the adaptations of the flower to desirable insect guests. Above the petals is a crown of five hood-like nectaries, each bearing within a slender, inverted horn. The center of the flower is designedly slippery. When an insect alights on this slimy surface to sip the abundant nectar, her feet slip and are tightly caught in crevices, also of fell design. When she extricates her toes, so to speak, she drags out attached to them a dangling pair of pollen masses - pollinia, a part of which is sure to adhere to the pistil of the next milkweed flower she visits. Insects have been caught at this season with stalks of these pollinia attached to every one of their six feet." Published in the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune July 9, 1911

Lore: There is considerable reference in plant literature to the medicinal aspects of this plant. As its alternate common name, Pleurisy Root, implies, medicines made from the plant root can actively affect the accumulated life-weakening mucus build-up of pleurisy and mild pulmonary edema.. The root is used in a decoction or an infusion to promote perspiration and clearing of the lungs. It has also been used to treat rheumatism, dysentery and colds. An average dose was a scant teaspoon chopped and boiled in water of one or two cups such that the ratio is one part root to 30 parts water. Large amounts will cause nausea or vomiting. The root contains glycosides and the active principle of the root is Asclepiadin. Dr. Clapp recommended it as an alternative expectorant and diaphoretic, and in large doses as a laxative. In the 19th Century the plant was listed in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia. Tilford and Hutchins have information on the plant lore and Mrs. Grieve has extensive information (see reference list).