milkweed aka inmortal

since being in the southwestern region of the sonoran desert of arizona, i've had the opportunity to study/apprentice with a woman who is an herbal medicine maker (specifically native plants to this area) and botanical illustrator, who has worked closely with the late michael moore, founder and educator of the SW school of botanical medicine. anyone involved in the herbal medicine world, any where in the world, knows who michael moore was. mimi illustrated his book medicinal plants of the pacific southwest and healing herbs of the upper rio grande: traditional medicine of the southwest. she reminds me of georgia o'keafe...beautifully desert weathered, a goddess of a harsh arid climate of which a fortunate few are actually touched by it's magic. she knows exactly where to go for certain plants, and exactly what time of year to find it.

recently, we went hunting for desert willow (more on that plant later) and on the way came across milkweed growing along the highway. 

in mexico it is traditionally called inmortal (aka antelope horns), and since i am studying about this herb along the mexico boarder regions, more times than not it is referred to as inmortal...so that's how i'll refer to it.

INMORTAL belongs to the Asclepias Asperula species, named after Asclepias the greek goddess of healing due to it's many medicinal uses. in mexican folk medicine culture this plant has so many life offering remedies, hence the name coming from the idea of immortality. it tends to grow at higher elevations, often times amongst granite fields, but can also be found in disturbed soils, like roadsides and construction sites. the name milkweed was coined for it's acrid milky juice, which contains alkaloids, latex, and a complex compound called cardenolides, a type of steroid. butterfly weed is a slang name for this plant because the monarch butterfly is a huge fan of the flower's chemically acrid nectar which supplies the butterfly with a natural defense against predators.

there are MANY species of "milkweed", but the one specific to what i'm talking about has bunchy clusters of roundish white flowers. it has a long central root, called a tuber, and is the part used in medicine making.

uses are dry extract, or tea, for cardiovascular and respiratory difficulties, and historically has been used during labor and child birth. due to the high toxicity level of INMORTAL, i would not recommend harvesting or using this plant for medicine unless you are qualified to administer such a powerful medicine.
also, since the harvesting of any root from a wild plant would warrant killing the plant, it is highly recommended to only harvest the roots of a garden plant.

further, as a garden food for insect pollinators it is prized for it's method of reproducing: "pollination in this genus is accomplished in an unusual manner. pollen is grouped into complex structures called pollinia (or "pollen sacs"), rather than being individual grains or tetrads, as is typical for most plants. The feet or mouthparts of flower visiting insects such as bees, wasps and butterflies, slip into one of the five slits in each flower formed by adjacent anthers. The bases of the pollinia then mechanically attach to the insect, pulling a pair of pollen sacs free when the pollinator flies off. Pollination is effected by the reverse procedure in which one of the pollinia becomes trapped within the anther slit." (wikipedia)

 i went back a few days later to take these photos. unfortunately, i missed the blossoms...on the flip side i was just in time to see the various stages of the seed pods bursting.