Rusby'S Milkweed (Asclepias rusbyi)
Description
Duration: Perennial Nativity: Native Lifeform: Forb/Herb General: Herbaceous perennials from slender simple stems that are glabrous, 60-120 cm tall. Leaves: Irregularly alternate, sessile and linear, 9-15 cm long, 3-7 mm across, somewhat subsucculent, glaucous and conduplicate. Flowers: Umbels later from few to several of the upper nodes, several to many flowered, with peduncles 1.5 cm long. Flowers small, calyx lobes ovate-lanceolate, 3-4 mm long, minutely to irregularly pilosulose, corolla roate, pale green and tinted with purple, the hoods deeply saccate, 2-2.5 mm long. Fruits: Follicles unknown- Ecology: Found in rocky slopes in open oak forest, from 3,500-7,000 ft (1067- 2134 m); flowers June and July. Distribution: Ranges across northern Arizona along the edge of the Mogollon rim and into southern and southeastern Utah. Notes: Some uncertainty about this taxa, and whether it belongs as a variety of A. engelmanniana. Woodson 1954 wrote, -I am rather reluctantly assigning it to full status as a species because there are several, not merely one or at best a few, structural differences of the flowers, and because the populations occurs well within the range of A. engelmanniana.- Etymology: Asclepias is named for the Greek god of healing Asklepios, while Rusbyi is named for Henry Hurd Rusby. Synonyms: Acerates rusbyi, Asclepias engelmanniana var. rusbyi Editor: SBuckley 2014
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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Class: Magnoliopsida
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Order: Gentianales
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Family: Apocynaceae
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Genus: Asclepias
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