Plant kinda looks like it but its been a really long time since I've been it out on the prairie where it grows wild.

The flower & buds is a mystery however.

Thanks

Trying to remember waaay back on this one.

Appreciate the assist.

YES. Asclepias is the botanical name for common Milkweed

Hopefully, it'll have some little caterpillars munching on it soon! It's an essential meal for Monarchs.

and my farm is blooming with several kinds of milkweed right now. I love this kind, the flowers are pretty. They all are really but that is such a nice color with the green grasses. Mildweed, absolutely.

Every place out there is an adventure

A lot of work but wonderful.

Faunal Associations:

The nectar of the flowers attracts long-tongued bees, butterflies, and skippers. To a lesser extent, green metallic bees and other Halictid bees may visit the flowers, but they are less effective at pollination.

Another unusual visitor of the flowers is the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. Among the butterflies, such visitors as the Pipevine Swallowtail, Giant Swallowtail, American Painted Lady, Red Admiral, Clouded Sulfur, Eastern Tailed-Blue, Regal Fritillary, Great Spangled Fritillary, and many others have been reported.

A group of oligophagous insects feed on milkweeds. They include caterpillars of the butterfly Danaus plexippes (Monarch); caterpillars of the moths Cycnia inopinatus (Unexpected Cycnia) and Cycnia tenera (Delicate Cycnia); the aphids Aphis asclepiadis, Aphis nerii, and Myzocallis asclepiadis; Lygaeus kalmii (Small Milkweed Bug) and Oncopeltus fasciatus (Large Milkweed Bug); and Tetraopes tetrophthalmus (Red Milkweed Beetle).

Mammalian herbivores rarely consume Purple Milkweed and other milkweeds because of the bitter-tasting, toxic foliage, which contains cardiac glycosides.

https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/savanna/plants/pur_milkweed.htm

Well now we know!

Thanks all 🙂

Asclepias syriaca .... a little course for most gardens but great for natural areas.

Monarchs love em. Lot of other critters use 'em and birds love the bugs that they "host."

If you have the time see if you can see the monarch caterpillar chewing across the leaf's mid
rib so it then eat that leaf to harvest the glycoside which gives the adult monarch protection
from being eaten by birds.