Fresh, silky milkweed floss in late summer ( or is it early fall ? )...about to carry the next generation into the wind and colonize new territory in the Spring. Paper-thin wrinkled discs hardly look capable of growing into great stalks of sturdy milkweed plants. Each individual plant seems like a world unto itself : aphids, leaf hoppers and spitbugs sip their juices, milkweed beetles thrive on them ( not exactly sure what they do...? ), Monarch butterfly caterpillars eat the leaves. All sorts of insects visit the sweetly scented flowers to sip on nectar or collect pollen ( or dine on smaller insects that are collecting nectar or pollen ) I've witnessed at least one groundhog chow down on the young plants ( less than two feet tall ) in our own yard, leaving bare stems weeping white latex. Who know what goes on under the ground...what sorts of relationships they have worked out with fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms. Where there is now seemingly barren ground, milkweed seeds await their cues to continue their version of life on Earth.
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