Puzzle Description:

Common Milkweed pod This is intended to be part of identifiable plant species. This one in particular may, if I am skillful enough, grow (pun intended) to include the species of butterfly caterpillars dependent on this food source. For now, I will defer to text: The Monarch Butterfly, while not yet endangered, has lost habitat and food source throughout its range from the NE America to Mexico. In its caterpillar stage, the common milkweed is a critical and possibly exclusive food source. It's very name indicates why it has been uprooted -- who needs weeds? Farmers often eradicate species that are perceived to have no commercial value. Fortunately, there is hope. Small factories in New England are experimenting with using the fluffy part of the seed pods as natural fiber for commercial and industrial fabrics. Creating a market gives an incentive for farmers to leave grow or even cultivate the species, helping in the process the Monarch Butterfly recover its numbers. Who can't want more butterflies? If you want to learn how to get milkweed seeds and where to plant them, try this website: https://medium.com/conservation-service-in-action/how-we-collect-and-process-milkweed-seeds-for-monarchs-f6b5e899d878

#1: Norma Dee (norm0908) on Aug 29, 2020

Great puzzle. And thanks for the info on butterflies. If I didn't live in an apt. I would be planting milkweed.

Very good illustration of some very useful information.

I have a milkweed patch next to my driveway. I keep it from being cut down. I once knew a man in the midwest who was using the silk for pillow stuffing.

I was sure it'd be a cotton boll. :)

One tip: hyperlinks don't work in the Description field, so you have to put your link into a comment.

https://medium.com/conservation-service-in-action/how-we-collect-and-process-milkweed-seeds-for-monarchs-f6b5e899d878

Very interesting!

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