Life of a milkweed pod. Photo by Jennifer Devine.
Story by Jennifer Devine
NOTE: Always do your own research and accompany an experienced forager before harvesting any wild plant. Described uses and health benefit claims are solely those of the author and sources.
You can’t drive down the road right now without seeing fuzzy white patches in the ditch reminiscent of dandelions gone to seed. The patches are proof that milkweed plants are still with us. Now is the time to harvest and sow their seeds for emergence next spring.
Milkweed’s usefulness is known to the military, artisans, home crafters, homeopaths and hunters. For centuries, Indigenous artisans have used the plant’s silky floss for stuffing pillows, mattresses, blankets and winter clothes. The fluff is lightweight and warmer than wool. Milkweed seeds contain an oil rich in omega 7s (healthy fatty acids), calcium, magnesium, zinc and more. The oil is said to help reduce inflammation, soothe sore muscles and return natural elements into the skin. The milky-white sap contains a mild poison which keeps the monarch butterfly from tasting good to predators. Though it is used by humans to remove warts, this sap has proven to be an allergy for some.
Milkweed once valued
A notice from Leelanau County in the July 18, 1929 Suttons Bay Courier stated that all noxious weeds (including milkweed) were to be destroyed before they were able to seed or spread. If you did not comply and the county had to do the dirty work, you would be sent an invoice and a lien placed on your property until the county was paid. A similar announcement appeared in 1928 in the Otsego Courier.
But notices like these disappeared when the government recognized the value of this “noxious invasive weed” after its source for life-jacket filler ran dry. War Hemp Industries brought the first and only milkweed processing plant to Petoskey, Michigan in WWII. From November 1943 through June 1945, the Milkweed Floss Corporation of America took over the Preston Feather building on Sheridan Street, right next to the railroad. Civilian adults and children were part of the war effort, collecting pods in 50-pound onion sacks and selling them to various locations, which then sent them to Petoskey. The seed was separated from the floss (technically called coma) and about two million pounds of floss were used to stuff 1.2 million life jackets for our troops. About 40 pounds of milkweed pods were needed to make one life jacket with 15 pounds of pods yielding, on average, a little under a pound of floss. Milkweed is a great alternative fiber because it has the capacity to float 30 times its own weight.
Milkweed undervalued today
After the war, milkweed continued to fill pillows and bedding, but these uses aren’t as common today. The hypoallergenic properties and cruelty-free advantage of the floss outweighs the goose down filling or cotton batting and, in my opinion, should be used much more frequently. Admittedly, it’s a process to separate, and as I found out, the floss can float away with a single breath. Each of the plant’s flowers can produce one or two green horn-shaped pods filled with more than 50 flat cream-colored seeds that turn toffee-brown when mature. Once that happens, the pod will start to dry and shrink, cracking open at the seam to reveal the seeds connected to the white fiber. As the floss dries, the dainty tendrils fan out, dancing in the wind and awaiting take off.
Floss gathered in October and November by gardeners is useful as a tool for hunters too. As they sit trees, hunters can pull a handful of floss from their pockets and let it float in the air to determine if they are upwind or downwind from a deer. I watched hunters use this method in TV shows this year.
Repopulating milkweed
Milkweed (Asclepias) is the sole host plant for monarch butterflies, my favorite flying pollinator. Destroying this plant means destroying their population as well. Eggs are laid on the leaves. Caterpillars eat the leaves. Butterflies drink the sweet nectar of the flower and pollinate. Monarch butterflies aren’t the only insect to feed on the plant, they’re just the only insect whose life revolves around it.
Today, the milkweed plant is in decline. As a result, so are monarch butterflies. But we can help by planting more of these perennials in roadside ditches, fields and garden containers. Check your local conservatories, seed and plant sellers, roadsides and neighbors to find pods and seeds that are specific to your region. Find more information about milkweed and how to purchase or obtain free seeds at: www.xerces.org/milkweed and www.saveourmonarchs.org.
If you forage for them, don’t remove all the pods.
If you’d like to have flowers next spring, plant your native seeds now, in November. This will help them germinate, through cold stratification, under the snow and frozen ground. I will be planting mine this month and writing more on the subject from MI Backyard this spring.
To read more about milkweed’s fascinating history in Michigan, and to view photographs taken during the WWII effort, go to: https://charlevoixemmethistory.weebly.com/wwii-milkweeds.html.
