Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is a larval host plant for the Monarch and Queen butterflies, and is a Monarch Way Station plant.

This plant has special value to native, bumble, and honey bees, including yellowfaced, sweat, green sweat, small resin, and leafcutter bees.

Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) also supports conservation biological control by attracting beneficial insects which consume a variety of common garden pests.

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Native to every state in the U.S., except California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and Mississippi. Also native to Ontario, Manitoba, and Quebec provinces in Canada.
This is not an aggressively spreading milkweed. It blooms later than many milkweeds, which makes it a great candidate for extending the milkweed season.
This is both a nectar plant as well as host plant for the endangered Monarch butterfly, so it feeds the caterpillars as well as the adults.
Milkweeds are fantastic for the monarch butterfly population.
This is a milkweed that likes moisture, and the leaves are thin and will tend to dry out rather quickly if they are picked to feed Monarch caterpillars if you are trying to raise them.
This also attracts many other butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, and moths.

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The Swamp Milkweed was one of my first native plants; put in a wet spot in our yard in spring 2012 as seedlings. Later that summer it was covered in the non-native Oleander Aphids. To my surprise, they came up the next spring and even bloomed, but that was the last I saw of them.

What a surprise! In a drier area of our yard, some came up this spring (2015). I sowed seeds in that patch in 2013 and they must've taken that long to germinate. There are three plants and they all have flowers! Monarch eggs have already been laid and the larvae are consuming this. So far, no sign of the aphids, but I check the plants regularly.

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Pink Swamp Milkweed looks a lot like Butterfly Weed except that the mid-summer flowers are rosy-pink and plants have a succulent texture. Growing about 3 feet tall, this perennial needs full sun and can take, but does not require, boggy conditions. It is a butterfly magnet.

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This is a nice, easy, reliable perennial that I have seen wild in many wet meadows and marshes around southeast Pennsylvania and as a garden plant that is sold by conventional and native plant nurseries. It does well in sunny sites with average, mesic soil, even though in nature it is pushed by completion into wet areas. It does self sow some, but not horribly so. It is bothered most years later in summer by the introduced insect pest of the orange Oleander Aphid that does not kill it but makes it suffer and not look as good. This is a fantastic pollinator plant, especially for butterflies.

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Habitat preferred - low, wet areas in prairies, borders of marshes, ponds, and ditches. Monarchs really love them.
Interesting seeds and seedpods.
Wildflower.

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