Asclepias syriaca, commonly called
common milkweed,
butterfly flower,
silkweed,
silky swallow-wort, and
Virginia silkweed, is a species of flowering plant. It is in the genus
Asclepias, the
milkweeds. This species is native to southern Canada and of much of the conterminous eastern U.S., east of the Rocky Mountains, excluding the drier parts of the prairies. It grows in sandy soils and other kinds of soils in sunny areas. It was one of the earliest North American species described in
Cornut's 1635 work
Canadensium Plantarum Historia. The specific name was reused by Linnaeus due to Cornut's confusion with a species from
Asia Minor.