I walked through 30-plus acres of milkweed yesterday. The smell is delicious and joyful and hearty. Common milkweed is incredibly fragrant in the way lilac or jasmine is; desperate, but not overpowering... if that’s even possible? It’s a clean smell but it’s as heady as any exotic. As it heats up on a Vermont summer day, the smell floats like a veil down the side of the mountain and into my windows. I wonder why no one has ever made a perfume of it -- it must be considered inelegant because of its farm status? Then again, I HATE perfume (not smells or essential oils... but smells with propellants and sickening carriers) because it gives me immediate ice pick headaches, so it’s fair to say I just haven’t done my milkweed perfume research. Many people trying to have a “yard” or grow hay for livestock often regard it as a baneful, willful weed. I think it projects a stealth but patient intelligence that makes me feel like someone’s got my back? I’m a weirdo but that’s accurate.
"What a heart-breaking, evocative supply chain image; I think of all those tiny fingers weaving a wreath to throw a drowning man." Fuckin' poetry. xoxo
Thank you for your vivid and heartfelt appreciation of milkweeds. In addition to their fragrance and ecological importance, they are architectural marvels. Wildflower fanciers are well advised to ignore the scarcity of bright colors and meet them on their own terms. Growing up in the Chicago area I thought there was only one species; now each new species I encounter is a revelation. But somebody needs to engineer a Roundup-resistant variety soon and propagate it across the Midwest lest the King of Butterflies starve to extinction. BTW, I hate the name -- no native plant deserves to be called a weed. I prefer Linnaeus' choice of Asclepias, after Asclepius the Greek god of healing.
My stepdaughter brought us some milkweed with monarch butterfly larvae at the beginning of the pandemic last spring. We raised about 15 monarchs in two cycles. The milkweed was completely bare by the time they left on their miraculous journey to Mexico, but it is bursting with flowers in our backyard outside of DC right now. Each beautiful monarch was like a child we reared & launched and I cried a few tears of joy each time one was ready to start their journey without us, nurtured by that beautiful milkweed bush. 🦋💙🦋💙
There is a particular smell that always reminds me of wandering the fields near my grandparents’ house when I was a child. Sometimes I catch it when I’m hiking but I’ve never identified exactly what it is. Now I wonder if it’s milkweed. I think I’ll be doing some smell tests this afternoon.
I don’t know, I just had my first experience with smelling, opening up my olfactory… sense - I had never experienced that before. Because of course you say “if you smell, you smell”, but it is more difficult to think that “a smell facilitates the smelling of another smell”. That is what happened. Literally an “aromatherapy candle”. But truth be told - I became aware of other smells, maybe like warming up your body physically through exercise and then experiencing touch, or squeezing the side of your eye so that an image becomes clearer, and focusing through one eye, and then the other
Another fun thing about Milkweed is while it is attracting Monarchs, they are followed by Praying Mantis, surely the most intimidating insect. It's amazing to watch them hunt the butterflies with their lightning quick, razor sharp forearms. Sure it's a bummer for the Monarchs, but they have to make a living too.
"What a heart-breaking, evocative supply chain image; I think of all those tiny fingers weaving a wreath to throw a drowning man." Fuckin' poetry. xoxo
Thank you for your vivid and heartfelt appreciation of milkweeds. In addition to their fragrance and ecological importance, they are architectural marvels. Wildflower fanciers are well advised to ignore the scarcity of bright colors and meet them on their own terms. Growing up in the Chicago area I thought there was only one species; now each new species I encounter is a revelation. But somebody needs to engineer a Roundup-resistant variety soon and propagate it across the Midwest lest the King of Butterflies starve to extinction. BTW, I hate the name -- no native plant deserves to be called a weed. I prefer Linnaeus' choice of Asclepias, after Asclepius the Greek god of healing.
My stepdaughter brought us some milkweed with monarch butterfly larvae at the beginning of the pandemic last spring. We raised about 15 monarchs in two cycles. The milkweed was completely bare by the time they left on their miraculous journey to Mexico, but it is bursting with flowers in our backyard outside of DC right now. Each beautiful monarch was like a child we reared & launched and I cried a few tears of joy each time one was ready to start their journey without us, nurtured by that beautiful milkweed bush. 🦋💙🦋💙
Takes me back to the milkweed fields that were my playground near my childhood home in Upstate New York. ❤️
The way you put words together is a healing balm for my brain. Thank you.
There is a particular smell that always reminds me of wandering the fields near my grandparents’ house when I was a child. Sometimes I catch it when I’m hiking but I’ve never identified exactly what it is. Now I wonder if it’s milkweed. I think I’ll be doing some smell tests this afternoon.
I don’t know, I just had my first experience with smelling, opening up my olfactory… sense - I had never experienced that before. Because of course you say “if you smell, you smell”, but it is more difficult to think that “a smell facilitates the smelling of another smell”. That is what happened. Literally an “aromatherapy candle”. But truth be told - I became aware of other smells, maybe like warming up your body physically through exercise and then experiencing touch, or squeezing the side of your eye so that an image becomes clearer, and focusing through one eye, and then the other
“ I think of all those tiny fingers weaving a wreath to throw a drowning man.”
gorgeous, gorgeous.
Another fun thing about Milkweed is while it is attracting Monarchs, they are followed by Praying Mantis, surely the most intimidating insect. It's amazing to watch them hunt the butterflies with their lightning quick, razor sharp forearms. Sure it's a bummer for the Monarchs, but they have to make a living too.
I think that you'd enjoy Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, if you haven't already read it. Gathering Moss is it's appetizer.
damn.
Okay now I really wanna sit in a milkweed field and tear apart seed pods. That's new 😂