Red Milkweed

Asclepias rubra, Red Milkweed, is one of our rare native wildflowers that you almost never see sold anywhere. I found a nursery selling it, and yes, they propagate by seed. This picture was taken at night becuase I've worked most morning shifts for the past week, and come home to a plethora of storms, flood and tornado warnings. I'll try to post better images in the next few days.

Much like Asclepias purpurascens, Purple Milkweed, this species has a red vein down the middle of their leaves. The two species differ by Red Milkweed having much narrower leaves and typically paler flowers. As seen above flowers are more of a pinkish tone with paler almost white forms as well as darker sometimes bicolored forms too.

To add to this confusion I've noticed a few nurseries have started calling Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, as Red Milkweed... they are wrong.