Wildflowers I've spotted this month:
Golden-eye Phlox, Phlox Roemeriana

Cedar Sage, Salvia Roemeriana, earlier this month

A climbling, sprawling milkweed vine patch, spotted near Lakehills. It COULD be Funastrum cynanchiodes, but can't be totally sure unless it blooms sometime. I have a Funastrum cynanchioides species...and I already know it spreads underground. If it can spread as much as that area near Lakehills has, maybe I'd better get it out of my yard!

Damianita, Chrysactina mexicana

Linda, that Funastrum sure looks like the one I have, and my Moarch cats, 12 of them that are being raised on it and they are eating it like hotcakes, I think this might be our native milkweed problem solver.

Josephine, I'm so happy to hear you're raising some Monarch cats! And I haven't tried giving that to Monarch cats yet. I haven't had any of those since Spring 2012...and had enough other milkweed, so didn't think of the vines. Glad to hear my vines might be used by the cats! Where did you get your milkweed vines? Ever seen any flowers? My Funastum cynanchoides vines grew from seeds I got in a trade. It IS invasive, I know that!

Fendler's Bladderpod, Lesquerella Fendleri

Greenthread, Thelesperma filifolium

Indian Blanket, Gaillardia pulchella

Yes it did bloom beautiful white flowers, but didn't make seed, I am hoping for seed this year.
It grows very fast but I think it is great, since I got no seed I am trying to root cuttings and some are working o.k.
I got the plants from a guy from DG that lives in the hill country.

Josephine, that looks amazing! To me, the flowers DO look right for Funastrum cynanchoides! Looks like you could feed lots of Monarchs on that vine! My vines root themselves just fine without my help ...I''ve been trying to discourage it!

Linda, I have to tell you the story of my 12 Monarch caterpillars, I have only seen one adult monarch butterfly this spring.
It was Good Friday and we were leaving for church at 6.30 in the evening and as we were backing out of the driveway I looked toward the mexican milkweed and saw the monarch laying eggs but I couldn't take time then, so I went in the morning and there were 15 eggs.
I took them in and 12 of them hatched and are doing great eating milkweed vine. I am trying to get them used to eating from the Funastrum and hoping they will lay eggs on it.
Last year I did find some Queen caterpillars on the vine as well.
The reason I am taking cuttings is so that i can get a lot of people supplied with easy to grow native milkweed.
Wish me luck!!

Good luck with the milkweed! I'm happy to know the Monarch found you, Josephine. Have you seen any Queens yet? Unfortunately, I've only seen one that was dead. Queen butterfly this year...am beginning to wonder if any will appear. Josephine, I have Texas Crescent cats now...most that survived have already pupated. All on False Mint (Dicliptera brachiata) from my yard. And some Pipevine Swallowtail cats, too. The Giant Swallowtails have been around this year...right now I have one tiny cat and one chrysallis.
A few pics of recent blooms...Scarlet Leatherflower (mine is more pink)

Purple Horsemint

Flor de San Juan

Linda, the monarch cat did well and all eclosed, but I haven't seen any more, and no queens either, I hope it will get better soon.

Josephine, the Queens have been here and laid eggs. Some eggs & caterpillars on A. curassavica, but I actually found 2 caterpillars on the Funastrum cynanchoides vines. So the Queens like it as a host plant. I did notice when cutting vine to bring in for the caterpillars, it has LOTS of the white latex sap! I have to be real careful, because I did have a problem last year because of milkweed sap. Somehow a little of it must have gotten in my eye and it caused a problem with my cornea. Turned out okay, however, after I saw my eye doctor. Anyway, the two cats from the F. cynanchoides vines both pupated. The vines bloomed last month.

That is great mews Linda!! and that is a great picture, so beautiful!!!
So far this year the Monarchs and Queens have basically been absent, but i saw two or three monarchs the other day, so maybe they will lay eggs.
I have only seen one Queen all season and we used to have them all over, I don't know what the problem is but something is wrong. I hope they will be able to increase their numbers and be back to normal again.

The Funastrum cynanchoides has done great this year, it covered two arbors and had lots of flowers, but no seed. Does yours make seed?
I have been trying to figure out why no seed, maybe it needs cross pollination,
If you have seed, could I please trouble you for some of it? As you know I am trying to make this plant popular so we can have plenty of milkweed.

I have rooted some cuttings and will have a few plants to sell at the Wildscape sale as well as the NPSOT sale, but the seed would be a lot more productive.
You are right about the latex, it has lots of it, please be careful when you handle it. I am glad you eye injury turned out to be minor.
I am totally busy right now with two sales coming up two weeks apart, wish me luck, we need to spread the word about native plants!!

Josephine, I haven't seen any seeds either. I've also encountered problems with A. texana, which needs other nearby plants of that species in order to produce seed pods. Not a big problem right now, because I have enough of those. But one single A. texana plant literally can't pollinate itself and essentially I only have one Funastrum cynanchoides plant...it's spreading, but still the same plant. So that could be the problem with this one. And let's face it, there aren't as many pollinaters as there used to be. Maybe all it needs is to use a little brush to get the pollen from one bloom to another...I've done that a little bit in the past.

Thank you Linda, I think I will try the brush.
I have seen quite a few small bees and flies on the flowers but maybe they didn't do the job.
I have found that it roots well in water.

We've gotten over an inch of rain over the last couple of days. I should check out the place by Lakehills where the other probable F. cynanchoides patch is located soon and see if there are any blooms on those vines now. I figure they may have just needed some rain to start blooming.

I was right...the large patch of milkweed vines near Lakehills was blooming, and butterflies (especially Pipevine Swallowtails) and other insects were going to them a lot. A good thing, because in the wild, things had pretty much stopped blooming and blooms are still not seen much. Other than this patch, flowering has not yet recovered after rains except for a few rain lilies and Snow-on-the-Mountain. I didn't notice caterpillars, but it's difficult to check for those in the short time I had, considering how big that patch of vines is. Only one Queen was around at the time. Pics didn't come out very well, but I believe it's Funastrum cynanchoides, looks just like it, and the flowers were various color variations, from white to the ones with colors more like the ones I have in my yard. A not so good pic of the Lakehills area vine flowers...oh, and I forgot to mention Gayfeather, which is starting to bloom well in certain areas, so here's a pic.

Both pretty blooms.

Very nice, the flowers on my vines are white, bur some have a little tinge of color.
I wish Gayfeather did well under cultivation, but it always flops.

I checked the place near Lakehills where the Funastrum cynanchoides vines were located and there ARE seed pods! Most of the flowers are gone and there are some pods, mostly pretty small right now. This pod (below) is the largest one I spotted. I will stop by sometime and put something on the pods to catch some seeds. On our way home, we saw one Monarch flying by, so good news!

Excellent Linda, you are nice to be watching out for seeds!! Mine have not made seeds yet, I hope you will get to harvest some.
I have seen a few Monarchs around here, but very few, I hope they will recover from this big set back.

There's something special about catching the asclepias going to seed. Here's A. verticillata, which is also a host plant for the Monarch butterfly.

A. verticilata grows around here too, but I have never seen it.
http://wildflower.org/plants/r...