Common Milkweed or Asclepias syriaca is one of my favorite weeds. As a kid I liked to pick the dry pods and open them up. The seeds and the fluff lay inside the pod so neatly is a thing of wonder. Then I would pull out seeds and fluff and watch them ride the wind. I would wonder if the fluff attached to the seeds was like cotton in cotton balls and that if it could be spun like cotton. The plant while it was a green was a wonder also because of the sticky milky white sap and the monarch butterfly larva and catapilers that would live on the leaves.
Milkweed fluff was gathered by school children during WWII for filling in life jackets even today it is used as a stuffing for jackets and pillows. The pods while green can be eaten. The stalk of this plant also produces a useful fiber that was used by Native Americans.
