Honey plants. Syrian milkweed
Milkweed, also known as Aesculapian milkweed, or milkweed, is a perennial herbaceous plant; the type species of the genus Milkweed in the family Apocynaceae.
Milkweed first came to Europe in the 17th century as an industrial crop and quickly spread to France, Germany, and other European countries. It is likely that milkweed was soon brought to Russia.
Milkweed is a tall, vigorous perennial herbaceous plant, up to 1.5 meters tall, with oblong-oval, dark green leaves 10-15 centimeters long and 5-7 centimeters wide. For some reason, the lower leaves always fall off in midsummer.
The grayish-purple or pinkish-purple flowers, resembling small stars, are collected in hemispherical umbels. The plant blooms in the second or third year, in the second half of summer, for 3-4 weeks. The fruit is a swollen, crescent-shaped green capsule with a corrugated surface, 10-12 centimeters long, splitting open at the sides when ripe. Numerous dark brown seeds are covered with long, silky, snow-white hairs (hence the name "milkweed"). The wind carries the seeds over long distances, but unfortunately, in temperate climates, they only ripen in years with long, dry, warm autumns.
Milkweed is native to North America, where it can be found on railway embankments, along roadsides, in fields, and in urban wastelands.
But why is milkweed called "Syrian"? It has no connection to Syria. The Italian traveler and naturalist Cornuti mistook milkweed for another plant, "kendir," which grows in the Middle East, specifically Syria. Carl Linnaeus established that these are distinct, though closely related, plants and classified it in the genus "Asclepias," but retained the designation "Syrian."
A thick, milky sap exudes when the stem or leaves are slightly damaged, hence the names "milky grass" and "swallow grass." According to legend, swallows use this sap to wet their chicks' eyes so they open them quickly. Sometimes the sap flows in such large quantities that drops even fall to the ground.
Initially, the stems were used to make fibers for coarse fabrics, rope, and stuffing for furniture and soft toys. Later, the milkweed's tufts were used to make film and various life-saving devices, as the tufts are practically impermeable to water. Tufted hairs were added to the weaving of silk, cotton, wool, and other yarns, and these "mixtures" produced amazingly beautiful, lustrous fabrics, but, alas, they were fragile. In some cases, tufted hairs were used instead of cotton wool.
Attempts were made to extract rubber from milkweed, as components of rubber and resin were found in its sap. For this purpose, it was cultivated in the botanical gardens of St. Petersburg, and later in the Kiev Botanical Garden and in Bila Tserkva, near Kyiv. However, rubber production proved labor-intensive and expensive; moreover, the rubber was of low quality.
Milkweed is a good honey plant. The honey collected by bees from its flowers is aromatic and delicious. Young plants are used as food, instead of asparagus. They can also be used to make sweet juice, and the flowers can be used to make sugar. Milkweed seeds contain up to 20-25 percent fatty oil. Milkweed is a drought- and frost-resistant plant; it overwinters undamaged and requires no shelter.
Milkweed is interesting as a unique plant with unusual, albeit subtle, colored flowers that possess a unique, subtle aroma—hence the popular nickname "fragrant bouquets."