Butterfly Weed
I spotted these rather showy orange flowers on the hillside beside our road on July 11, 2025. This is an area that was all ripped up when they rebuilt the road a while back, so this is one of the species that colonize disturbed areas.
This is pretty clearly Butterfly Weed, Asclepias_tuberosa. It is one of the milkweeds, which are known for their toxic milky sap and for being the food plants for monarch butterfly caterpillars. This species has showier flowers than is typical for milkweeds, making it actually a popular garden plant.
We can see all the stages of the individual florets, from bud to fully opened.
The flowers have what look like two sets of petals, one outside and fully open, while the other set stays closer in to the center.
I thought at first that these were escapees from somebody’s garden, but they may not be. This is actually a native North American plant, although they are probably getting their range extended by their popularity as garden flowers – if you do an online search for “butterfly weed”, you will find dozens of places selling either seeds or plant starts.
In spite of it being called “butterfly weed”, bees actually like the blossoms better than butterflies do. Which isn’t to say you won’t get butterflies, it just isn’t guaranteed. And while monarch caterpillars will feed on the plants, it isn’t their favorite milkweed variety. They tend to prefer the ones that are a bit less hairy. Also, this is one of the milkweeds with the lowest levels of toxins in their latex sap. Since one of the reasons that monarchs eat milkweed is that they can sequester the milkweed toxins into their skins for protection against predators, this also makes it less attractive to them than the “milkier” milkweeds.
Before planting these, or indeed any milkweeds, in your garden, you should be sure that you actually want them there. They are perennials with a very deep taproot, and can be very difficult to dig out if you decide that you don’t want them after all.