Mead's milkweed facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Mead's milkweed |
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| Conservation status | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Genus: |
Asclepias
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| Species: |
meadii
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Mead's milkweed (Asclepias meadii) is a special and rare plant. It's a type of milkweed that used to grow all over the Midwest. It loved living in wide-open tallgrass prairies.
Sadly, much of the Midwest has changed. Farms and cities have taken over, breaking up the prairie into smaller pieces. This has hurt Mead's milkweed, making it a threatened species. Many things make it rare, like mowing and plowing fields, new highways, and dirt washing away (called erosion). Also, it misses the natural prairie fires that used to help it. Pesticides, plants that don't belong, and people walking or driving off-road also cause problems. Even deer eating the plants and tiny bugs like the oleander aphid can harm it.
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Where Mead's Milkweed Lives
Today, you can only find Mead's milkweed growing naturally in Missouri and Illinois. People have tried to bring it back to Indiana and Wisconsin, where it had completely disappeared. Some plants also grow in Kansas and Iowa. However, many of these might not last, especially in Kansas. There, they often grow in private hay fields that are cut very often.
Building new highways is a big problem for this plant. In 2019, a highway expansion was planned that would destroy some of its last homes. Scientists tried to move the plants, but this hasn't worked very well so far.
What Mead's Milkweed Looks Like
This plant is a perennial herb. This means it lives for many years and grows new stems from an underground root system called a rhizome. It has a waxy, straight stem that can grow up to about 40 centimeters (about 16 inches) tall.
Its blue-green leaves grow in pairs on opposite sides of the stem. They have a cool herringbone pattern. The leaves are shaped like a spear and can be up to 8 centimeters (about 3 inches) long. Their edges are smooth and sometimes a little wavy.
The flowers grow in a group that hangs down, called an umbel. There are usually 6 to 23 sweet-smelling flowers in each group. Each flower has five petals that are about a centimeter long. When they first open, they are green or have a purple tint. As they get older, they become paler. Behind the petals are five sepals that bend backward. These flowers are full of nectar and attract many bees. Digger bees and bumblebees are some of its main visitors. After the flowers, the plant grows a fruit called a follicle. It can be up to 8 centimeters long and holds seeds with tiny hairs. Mead's milkweed lives a long time, often for several decades, and can even live for over a century! It takes at least four years for the plant to be old enough to make seeds.
How Mead's Milkweed Grows
Reproduction
Mead's milkweed often makes more plants by sending out new stems from its underground rhizome. This is like making clones of itself. It can also make new plants by producing seeds. However, the plant needs different genes to make strong seeds. If the seeds don't have enough variety in their genes, they might not grow well. Mead's milkweed cannot fertilize itself; it needs pollen from another plant.
Human activities have made it harder for the plant to make seeds. When fields are mowed, the flowers or young fruits are cut off before they can make seeds. Also, when the prairie is broken into small pieces, there are fewer other milkweed plants nearby for pollen to be shared. This also means fewer insects come to carry the pollen.
Life Cycle and Fire
This plant is used to occasional prairie fires. When these fires are stopped, it can hurt the plant. Fires can actually help Mead's milkweed in many ways. They can make the plant grow more leaves and flowers. Fires can also help increase the variety of genes in the plant population.
Its Friends and Foes
Insects and the Plant
Some insects like to eat Mead's milkweed. These include milkweed beetles like Tetraopes femoratus and Tetraopes tetrophthalmus, and milkweed weevils like Rhyssomatus annectans and Rhyssomatus lineaticollis. Like many other milkweeds, this plant is also a host for the amazing monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus).
However, a bug called the oleander aphid (Aphis nerii) is not native and can really harm the plants. It sucks sugars from the stems and leaves, making them turn yellow and fall off. This means the plant can't make as many flowers or seeds. Often, the oleander aphid is just one of many insects that weaken the plant during a growing season. Scientists have tried to introduce a special parasitic wasp that eats only this aphid. But this wasp is not widely available in North America yet. Other types of parasitic wasps that eat aphids have sometimes been seen eating the oleander aphid too.
Animals That Eat It
Deer and other animals can eat Mead's milkweed. One study found that if you plant new milkweed, you might need to put cages around them to protect them from animals. This is because this milkweed doesn't have many of the toxic chemicals that usually stop animals from eating other milkweed plants. Unfortunately, these cages need to be taken care of, and there isn't always enough money for that.
Human activities have also caused more deer and rodents to live in these areas. Rabbits also like to bite off the tops of young milkweed plants many times in a season. They don't eat the leaves, but this often kills the young plants. This behavior is seen in other milkweed species too, like Asclepias syriaca.
