If Dolly Parton were a flower, she might just be a butterfly weed.
Just like Dolly, Asclepias tuberosa is small in stature but bursting with life (native bees and bugs and, yes, butterflies all swarm it) — and it blooms that same blaring shade of orange as her beloved Volunteers, the student body just a stone’s throw from her Tennessee theme park. (At Dollywood, the butterfly is part of her brand – and the “w” in the logo.)
The name butterfly weed is a contradiction — it’s a vital resource for Lepidoptera and certainly not a nuisance one should weed from the garden. A. tuberosa is a native milkweed, the kind of plant the endangered monarchs must use to lay their eggs on and whose caterpillars must use as a food source. (They’re less picky, though, about where to hang their chrysalids.) Other butterflies, like the gray hairstreak, will use milkweed as a host plant, too. Look for some in bloom this week amid the little bluestem in the sandplain at Wellfleet Bay.
