Asclepias

Asclepias (or Swallow-wort) is the typical genus of Asclepiadaceæ (q.v.). The species are generally erect, seldom climbing and twining, herbaceous plants with opposite, whorled, or alternate leaves and flowers in umbels. They are mostly American.—A. cornuti (formerly called A. syriaca), Virginian Swallow-wort, or Virginian Silk, is a native of North America, and not of Syria, as was supposed. It is frequently cultivated in flower-gardens. The young shoots are eaten in North America like asparagus, as those of A. stipitacea are in Arabia. A brown well-tasted sugar is prepared in Canada from the flowers; and the silk-like down of the seeds has been used for the manufacture of textile fabrics, either alone, or along with wool or silk, but is more frequently employed for the preparation of wadding, and for stuffing mattresses and pillows. The plant appears, however, to be chiefly valuable for the fibre of its stalks, which has been used in a small way for the manufacture of thread and cloth in some parts of North America. The fibre is said to be of very superior quality, and that of other species furnishes muslin and paper in India. The plant rapidly extends by its creeping root-stocks, and readily becomes a weed.—The roots of several other North American species are used as diaphorotics and expectorants, as A. incarnata, A. tuberosa, &c. The latter is a very ornamental garden-flower, and is called Butterfly Weed and Pleurisy Root in the United States, where it is frequent on stony and sandy grounds. A. curassavica is called Wild Ipecacuanha in the West Indies, and a decoction of it is used by the negroes as an emetic and purgative.—It has been attempted to identify the Soma plant, mentioned in the Vedas as yielding an intoxicating beverage from its bruised stem and leaves, as an asclepias.