Help to identify the plant with pink small flowers and long big leaves
My friend has moved to a new house and found this plant growing in the yard (southeastern USA). He is not sure what it is and how to care for it. Please, could you identofy this bush with long quite big green leaves and nice looking small pink fragrant flowers.
Thank you!
This plant looks like Asclepias incarnata, also called Swamp milkweed, Rose milkweed, Rose milkflower, Swamp silkweed, and White Indian hemp. It is native to North America.
Asclepias incarnata grows in damp to wet soils and also is cultivated as a garden plant for its flowers, which attract butterflies and other pollinators with nectar. There are a number of cultivars available on the market. Being a milkweed, the plant’s sap contains toxic chemicals. The plants are also sold as freshly cut flowers, mostly for their long-lasting flower display, but sometimes, for the distinctive seed pods.
In the past, the roots of swamp milkweed were simmered to make a tea taken in small quantities both as a general purge and to destroy and expel parasitic worms.
Yes, it is Asclepias or a milkweed. I saw it in Ukraine as well during my travel. But I wasn’t sure if it is Asclepias incarnata or another type. I saw it already ripe, with fruits, in fall. I didn’t see any flowers, of course, but I saw different plants, with green leaves and already yellow, with ripe fruits.
Here are some photos (please, let me know, if it is the same Asclepias or something different):
Asclepias seeds, each with long, white flossy hairs, occur in large follicles:
The simple leaves of the milkweed are opposite or sometimes whorled; broad ovate-lanceolate:
