Bract Milkweed (Asclepias brachystephana)

Description

Plant: Perennial herb, 20-50 cm tall; STEMS ascending, much branched below, finely short woolly, especially on younger growth; with milky sap Leaves: opposite, the petioles 2-8 mm long, the blades narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 3-13 cm long, 5-20 mm broad, long attenuate to an acute apex, obtuse to acute at the base, rather persistently white woolly above, glabrate below INFLORESCENCE: UMBELS lateral from many of the upper nodes, 2-4 cm broad, the peduncles 0.5-1.5 cm long, woolly, the pedicels white wooly Flowers: small; calyx lobes 2-3 mm long; corolla purple, the lobes 5-6 mm long; hoods drying yellow brown, erect-ascending, hemispheric, widening upward to a truncate to 3-lobed rim, the triangular marginal lobes slightly higher than the rounded median lobe, 1.5-2.6 mm long, 1.4-2 mm broad, ca. 1-2 mm shorter than the gynostegium, the horns attached near the middle of the hoods, tangentially flat, tongue-shaped, erect, short-exserted to about the height of the marginal lobes; anther wings 1.6-1.8 mm long; corpusculum 0.2-0.3 mm long, the pollinia 1-1.1 mm long Fruit: follicles erect on deflexed pedicels, 4-7 cm long, more or less conspicuously purple-striped Misc: Desert mts. and plains, grasslands, roadsides; 1300-2000 m (4200-6500 ft); May-Sep REFERENCES: Sundell, Eric. 1994. Asclepiadaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27, 169-187. Plant: Perennial herb, 20-50 cm tall; STEMS ascending, much branched below, finely short woolly, especially on younger growth; with milky sap Leaves: opposite, the petioles 2-8 mm long, the blades narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 3-13 cm long, 5-20 mm broad, long attenuate to an acute apex, obtuse to acute at the base, rather persistently white woolly above, glabrate below INFLORESCENCE: UMBELS lateral from many of the upper nodes, 2-4 cm broad, the peduncles 0.5-1.5 cm long, woolly, the pedicels white wooly Flowers: small; calyx lobes 2-3 mm long; corolla purple, the lobes 5-6 mm long; hoods drying yellow brown, erect-ascending, hemispheric, widening upward to a truncate to 3-lobed rim, the triangular marginal lobes slightly higher than the rounded median lobe, 1.5-2.6 mm long, 1.4-2 mm broad, ca. 1-2 mm shorter than the gynostegium, the horns attached near the middle of the hoods, tangentially flat, tongue-shaped, erect, short-exserted to about the height of the marginal lobes; anther wings 1.6-1.8 mm long; corpusculum 0.2-0.3 mm long, the pollinia 1-1.1 mm long Fruit: follicles erect on deflexed pedicels, 4-7 cm long, more or less conspicuously purple-striped Misc: Desert mts. and plains, grasslands, roadsides; 1300-2000 m (4200-6500 ft); May-Sep REFERENCES: Sundell, Eric. 1994. Asclepiadaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27, 169-187.