Species Name:  Ascepias incarnata

Common Name: Swamp Milk Weed, Red Milkweed

Zone: 3 to 9

Light: Full Sun to Light Shade

Soil Moisture: Wet to Moist to Medium

Soil Types: Sand, Loam, Clay, Saturated to Well -drained

Fertility: Medium to Rich

pH: 5 to 6.5

Bloom Time: June - July

Habit: A clump forming perennial to 3 to 4 ft tall. In early to mid-summer flower stalks are topped by rounded pink or rose colored flower clusters which attract swarms of pollinator insects. Leaves and stems emit a milky toxic sap that deter most plant eaters such as deer and rabbits but the plant is a host for Monarch caterpillars that can safely feed on the leaves.
Plants are easy to propagate and naturalize from seed. Like most milkweed the seed is dispersed by wind on downy strands of silk.
Naturalized plants are typically found in sunny wet areas of wet meadows, ditches, swamps, shorelines, floodplains and bottomland forests but also in drier soils in old fields and meadows.

Swamp milkweed also makes for an attractive, hardy, deer resistant, garden plant.

Asclepias incarnate grows throughout the eastern US.