Give Monthly
to GWF

Make a One-time Donation

Resources < Wildlife Habitats < Native Plants < Native Plant Database < Asclepias incarnata

Swamp Milkweed
Asclepias incarnata

If you want to attract monarch butterflies to your backyard wildlife habitat, plant swamp milkweed. This adaptable plant is a preferred food of the monarch caterpillar. Install some swamp milkweed in your garden and wait: Chances are you’ll soon discover tiny, pearly monarch eggs on the undersides of the leaves. The eggs will hatch into caterpillars with bold black and yellow stripes; they’ll be so handsome and colorful, you won’t even begrudge them the leaves that they eat. The monarch chrysalis is one of nature’s most beautiful creations—jade-green and vase-like, decorated with glittering flecks of metallic gold. Look for chrysalides in protected spots close to your milkweed patch; I find them all the time on the molding around my front door. Beautiful black and orange adult monarchs will emerge from the chrysalides and come back to your swamp milkweed to sip nectar and lay more tiny eggs.

Family: Asclepiadaceae (Milkweed Family)

Description: An herbaceous perennial with lance-shaped leaves four to five inches long. In summer and early fall, tiny pink to white flowers appear in tight clusters, followed by okra-like pods. Inside the pods are rows of shiny brown seeds, each equipped with a silk parachute to aid in dispersal.

Size: Two to 4 feet high and 2 to 3 feet wide.

Habit: Erect, with many stems.

Growth Rate: Moderate.

Light: Full sun is best, but plants will tolerate a bit of shade.

Planting and Care: Swamp milkweed is shallow-rooted and easily transplanted. Despite its common name, you need not site this plant in a wet spot; it grows very well in ordinary, slightly acidic garden soil.

Ornamental Value: Assets include interesting seed pods and intricate pink to white flowers in showy clusters.

Landscape Usage: A must-have for the butterfly garden. Looks great in a meadow.

Wildlife Benefits: Flowers provide nectar for hummingbirds and many butterflies. Swamp milkweed is a host plant for the monarch butterfly.

Native Habitat: Found in moist meadows, at the edges of swamps, and along river bottoms from southeastern Canada to Florida and Utah.

Propagation: Seed, division.

Text and photo by Leslie Kimel, Georgia Wildlife Federation