Individual flower is a rosy, 5-point, star about ? inch across, at the center of which is a group of 5 small appendages curving inward and forming a crown around the style and stamens. Numerous flowers cluster together into a ball about 3 inches in diameter. Plants are about 3 feet tall with thick broad leaves, the flower clusters borne at the top of the stem and in axils of upper leaves. Grows on plains, especially along ditch banks. Blooms June-July.

The common weeds are too often taken for granted and not appraised for their real beauty. This milkweed is in such a group—a coarse-growing plant along country roads, often dust covered, yet with flowers of fine delicate color and real charm whether we examine them singly or fix our attention on the compact cluster in which they grow. As autumn comes the dry leaves do not drop, but cling to the stem, rattling in the wind. The rough seed pods, often four inches long, turn a rich brown, and finally split open revealing a filling of lustrous, silky, down from which is gradually released the seeds—brown-clad paratroopers with the most airy-fairy parachutes in the world.