Milkweed

a common plant with milky juice. We have a large number of milkweeds. The entire family includes over 1,000 species, most of them found in tropical climates. Most observing young people have noticed the fleshy flowers with a hooded crown and curious horns. The stickiness of the milk is due to rubber of which it contains considerable quantities. The bark of some kinds yields a valuable fiber. A mountain tribe of India uses these fibers to make elastic bowstrings. Another tribe makes the ropes and bands used in wells of this material, because it does not rot in water. From the roots of the red milkweed, over which orange-colored butterflies hover, herb doctors drew a valuable remedy for pleurisy. Several tropical milkweeds are cultivated in hothouses on account of their curious flowers. The silky down of the milkweed pod suggests the cotton plant.