| DESCRIPTION: It is a semiaquatic, herbaceous, perennial reaching 30-90 cm in height. All plant parts contain with milky sap. USE: Young shoots, flowers and leaves may be cooked with several changes of water and eaten. Stem fibres have been suggested as substitutes for flax and hemp. The roots have medicinal properties. It is grown as garden ornamental attracting butterflies. It is poisonous to sheep. GROWING PERIOD: Perennial. COMMON NAMES: Swamp milkweed, Swamp silkweed, White Indian hemp. FURTHER INF: It occurs in a range of wet conditions from standing water to saturated soil. It is common in wet places, such as low swampy ground, sphagnum bogs, stream banks, pond shores, and floodplains of lakes, waterways, marshes, swamps, wet areas in grassland and in low wet woods. It is a colonizer. It has wind-dispersed seeds and can self-fertilize. |
