What Two Items Are On The Flag Created By The Animals?

common milkweed Asclepias syriaca

The plants commonly known equally "milkweed" (genus Asclepias spp.) in Illinois, were designated the official State Wildflower in 2017. These plants are important nectar sources for pollinators and are vital to the larval stage of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). Yous can learn more most these 19 species hither.

Milkweeds are soft-stemmed plants that dice to ground level at the end of each growing season but abound back from the roots the next jump. About take leaves that are paired on the stem or in whorls of four on the stem, just there are also milkweed plants with leaves alternating on the stem, and those that accept and then many leaves that it is difficult to see a design. Most of them have sap that is white and milky. Milkweed plants contain cardiac glycosides. These chemicals are poisonous and bear upon birds and mammals. However, a few brute species accept adapted to eating milkweeds. Monarch larvae feed exclusively on milkweeds of the Asclepias and Ampelamus genera. The poisons accumulate in the body of the larval monarchs and are retained past the monarch in its transformation to the adult. They brand monarchs unpalatable to many predators.

Milkweed flowers develop at the stalk tip or in the leafage axils in the upper part of the establish. In some milkweed species the flowers are arranged in a spherical shape, while in other species the flowers droop. Color varies past species, only milkweeds can exist establish with white, pink, red, orange, green, reddish-purple and regal-pink flowers. The flowers are frequently described as having an hourglass shape. Each flower has five petals and v sepals that bend abroad from the other blossom structures. A v-parted loving cup supports five small-scale horns and hoods. The hoods contain nectar and are arranged around the cardinal blossom column. The bloom cavalcade has slits in it. Inside each slit is an opening where pollen (containing male person reproductive cells) must be delivered to fertilize the egg and start the development of a new milkweed plant. Also in each slit is the pollinarium that contains the pollen in packets.

Pollinators, including developed monarch butterflies, visit milkweeds for their nectar. Nectar is a sweetness solution produced by flowers to attract pollinators. Milkweeds accept a unique system for pollen transfer. When an insect visits a milkweed flower to drink nectar, its leg, antennae or beard tin sideslip into the slit in the flower where the pollen is stored. The pollen-containing structure clips onto the insect part. When the insect pulls away from the blossom, this pollen packet goes, too. The same insect torso part may slip inside a slit in the bloom cavalcade of a different flower. If the pollen package is placed precisely where information technology needs to be, that blossom will be pollinated. If the pollen packet is not deposited in the exact position required, fertilization will non occur. The corporeality of precision required may be the reason that milkweeds produce so few fruits. Pollinator populations are declining. As their numbers go along to subtract, the number of viable seeds from milkweeds will likewise be smaller, leading to fewer milkweed plants, fewer milkweed flowers and less pollen and nectar for pollinators.

The fruit that develops from the fertilized flower is a pod that contains seeds attached to floss. Seeds with floss are easily dispersed by current of air. An exception, though, is provided by the white swamp milkweed (Asclepias perennis). This species' seeds are dispersed by water instead of wind, and they practise not have floss.

Source: https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/education/Pages/ILStateSymbols.aspx

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