milkweed
Americannoun
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any of several plants that secrete a milky juice or latex, especially those of the genus Asclepias, as A. syriaca.
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any of various other plants having a milky juice, as certain spurges.
noun
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Also called: silkweed. any plant of the mostly North American genus Asclepias, having milky sap and pointed pods that split open to release tufted seeds: family Asclepiadaceae See also asclepias
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any of various other plants having milky sap
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another name for butterfly weed
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another name for monarch
Etymology
Origin of milkweed
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
There are plugs of grasses and gallon pots of white sage, purple sage, California buckwheat, long-stem buckwheat, deerweed, narrow leaf milkweed and coyote bush.
From Los Angeles Times
They did so because they recognized that strict prohibitions could backfire, leading landowners to destroy milkweed, a plant that monarchs need to survive.
Also, monarch butterflies flit among the tall stands of narrow leaf milkweed, the plant their caterpillars require to survive.
From Los Angeles Times
Scott is working with the Monarch Fellowship, a volunteer-driven initiative to plant pollinator flowers, to offer wildflower seeds in the fall and narrowleaf milkweed seeds and plants in the spring.
From Los Angeles Times
The one exception is a pot of orange-flowered tropical milkweed, a non-native variety they keep for sentimental reasons because it reminds them of how they met when they both were single living in Santa Monica.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.