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Asclepias speciosa –Asclepiadaceae - ‘Showy Milkweed,' 'Butterfly Weed.'– This is a key plant on the west coast for Monarch Butterflies, and it is also attractive to many other butterflies, beetles, and insects. Monarchs lay their eggs only on milkweed, and the larvae hatch and feed on the plant, while the mature butterflies congregate on the flowers, drinking the nectar. It actually attracts such a wide variety of insects, that is is a good way to gauge what insect life is living in a particular area.

A beautiful plant as well, with grey-green leaves topped by 4” diameter balls of waxy, very sweet scented flowers, which are followed by down-filled seedpods. This plant spreads from a slowly creeping rootstock, growing in moist soils in warm climates into a thick clump of stems 3'-4' in height. It dies to the ground in the wintertime, emerging even stronger year after year. The seed for these plants was collected along northern California's South Fork of the Trinity River, a wild canyon used as a flyway for Monarchs, and is native and hardy in a broad swath of the Western U.S.. This is a paler-flowered form than some I've seen elsewhere.