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Plant Profile

Prostrate Milkweed (Asclepias prostrata)

Flower, habit Photo Credit: Michael Eason

Global Rank: G1 - Critically Imperiled
Legal Status: N/A
Family: Apocynaceae
State: TX
Nature Serve ID: 133366
Lifeform: Subshrub, Forb/herb
Date Inducted in National Collection: 03/06/1993

Description:

A prostrate perennial with stems to 16 inches long, radiating from a central rootstock. Opposite leaves, triangular to deltoid-lanceolate to 1 3/4 inch long; short petiolate to nearly sessile, margins wavy, bases truncate to weakly cordate, tips acute. Flowers few, usually 4-5 in umbels held just above the stem; flowers to 1 inch long with creamy-white hoods extending beyond pale green hooks, the five pale green reflexed lobes have ascending tips. Follicles elliptic, to 2 1/2 inches long.

Where is Prostrate Milkweed (Asclepias prostrata) located in the wild?

Habitat:

Open grasslands with scattered shrubs/groves. Typically found in sandy soils

Distribution:

Far South Texas in Hidalgo, Starr and Zapata counties, possibly in adjacent Mexico

States & Provinces:

Prostrate Milkweed can be found in Texas

Which CPC Partners conserve Prostrate Milkweed (Asclepias prostrata)?

San Antonio Botanical Garden

Not Sponsored

Conservation Actions

Assigned 06/09/17

CPC's Plant Sponsorship Program provides long term stewardship of rare plants in our National Collection. We are so grateful for all our donors who have made the Plant Sponsorship Program so successful. We are in the process of acknowledging all our wonderful plant sponsorship donors on our website. This is a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

Conservation Actions

Tina Stanley

08/29/2022

As of August 2022, San Antonio Botanical Garden has collected seed from this species in the wild. San Antonio Botanical Garden also holds this species in living collection and has conducted propagation research.

Nature Serve Biotics

05/02/2017

Known from fewer than 10 occurrences in southern Texas. Also reported from Tamaulipas, Mexico. Outcompeted by widely planted and escaped non-native pasture grasses, such as buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris).

01/01/2010

exotic grasses (buffelgrass)

01/01/2010

3-4 sites numbering several hundred individuals; highway site doing well