. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. 540 Hmidhook of Nature-Sludy. THE MILKWEED Teacher's Story "Little weavers of the summer, with sunbeam shuttle bright. And loom unseen by mortals, you are busy day and night. Weaving fairy threads as filmy, and soft as cloud swans, seen In broad blue sky-land rivers, above earth's fields of ; â âRay Laurance. S there any other young plant that shows off its baby-clothes as does the young milkweed! When it comes up through the soil, each leaf is folded lengthwise around
. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. 540 Hmidhook of Nature-Sludy. THE MILKWEED Teacher's Story "Little weavers of the summer, with sunbeam shuttle bright. And loom unseen by mortals, you are busy day and night. Weaving fairy threads as filmy, and soft as cloud swans, seen In broad blue sky-land rivers, above earth's fields of ; â âRay Laurance. S there any other young plant that shows off its baby-clothes as does the young milkweed! When it comes up through the soil, each leaf is folded lengthwise around the stem, flannel side out, and it is entirely soft and white and infantile. The most striking peculiarity of the milkweed plant is its white juice, which is a kind of rubber. Let a drop of it dry on the back of the hand, and when we try to remove it we find it quite elastic and possessed of all of the qualities of crude rubber. At the first trial it seems quite impossi- ble to tell from which part of the stem this white juice comes, but by blotting the cut end once or twice, the hollow of the center of the stem is seen to have around it a dark (green |ring, and outside this is a light green ring. It is from the dark green ring encircling the stem cavity that the milk exudes. This milk is not the sap of the plant any more than resin is the sap of the pine; it is a special secretion, and is very acrid to the taste, rendering milkweed dis- gusting to grazing ani- mals. If a milkweed stem be broken or gashed, this juice soon heals the wound and keeps out germs, and thus is of great use to the plant, since many insects feed upon it. If cut across, every vein in every leaf produces "milk", and so does every small flower pedicel. When the "milk" is by chance smeared on cloth and allowed to dry, soap and water will not remove it, but it yields readily to chloroform, which is a sol- vent of rubber. The milkweed leaves are in stately conventional. Please note that
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