Talk:Asclepias

As a someone with a BSc Polymer Science and Technology, I'd suggest changing the word caoutchouc, in the artilce to latex. Caoutchouc is one of a group of related Romance words (French, Spanish, Italian etc)that emulate the words used by the inhabitants of south/Latin America for natural rubber. (The Brits christened it rubber because it can rub things out.) The sap of the plant is an emulsion of rubbery particles in water. You have to break the emulsion to precipitate out the rubbery particles as the first step to making rubber which can then be vulcanised.

You can read all about the process if you get hold of a copy of this book []

all the best Biofuelsimon (talk) 09:58, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Fixed.--Curtis Clark (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Photo

I have a couple of milkweed photos. They may be useful, but I don't know the species of milkweed. These photos were taken along the Escalante River, Utah, about four miles downstream of the Hwy 12 bridge.

A milkweed.

File:R27182818 milkweed img 0314.jpg

Another milkweed.

They look like showy milkweed (A. speciosa) to me.

--Belgrano 15:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is Asclepias speciosa.

--ButterflyEncounters 1 July 2007

Species better in a list

I don't know if anyone is still working on this, but the selected species would be better treated in a new article List of Asclepias species. Anyone interested? Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 02:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, milkweed is quite edible. The toxic substance is water-soluble so that if you boil it with frequent changes of water, the toxicity is lost and you are left with an excellent cooked vegetable. I enjoyed milkweed pods many times in my youth (though I do recall being ill once when perhaps the water hadn't been changed enough). I believe we learned of it from a book by Euell Gibbons and I am certain that it is regularly covered in books on edible wild plants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.60.112.96 (talk) 07:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Like the photos with the list of species

I'd like to thank whoever went to the trouble to put in photos for each of the species in the list. I wish they were all done that way. That is SO helpful for people who don't know any of the species and are trying to identify a particular one. It saves a LOT of time going to each one to see what it looks like.

Now I wonder if there's a template for doing the species list that way. It would be great to encourage writers to do that. Wcutler (talk) 06:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

they're also edible (if properly prepared)

The article should mention this fact. My mother used to cook them occasionally when I was a child and they were quite good. Euell Gibbons's "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" has a chapter on milkweed. The secret is to boil them with frequent changes of water (which gets rid of the toxicity). A Google search for "edible plants milkweed" had numerous hits (I tried including one link as a sample but it was blocked as spam).