Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

The Dogbanes are plants with a milky juice in the stems, widely branched at the top, and short 5-lobed bell-shaped flowers in clusters.

Spreading Dogbane is a native erect perennial growing to 3 feet high on stems that have many branches and contain a hazardous milky juice. Stems are without hair and color ranges from green to reddish where exposed to sunlight. Sometimes the plant is found sprawling atop other vegetation.

The leaves are opposite, oblong to ovate, with smooth margins, smooth green upper surface, paler underside, and somewhat drooping on the stem. Leaves form a wedge shaped base with a short, often reddish, stalk. (Red color on the stalks and stems is from sun exposure, less exposed parts remain green.) The main vein and lateral veins are prominent and contain the same milky juice as the stems.

The inflorescence is a branched cluster (a cyme) at the tip of the stem and others from the upper leaf axils. Each cluster is subtended by a leaf-like bract.

The flowers resemble a bell with a white to pinkish 1/3 inch long corolla of 5 lobes, whose outer lips recurve outward. These are rounded to pointed at the tips. There are pinkish-red lines inside the corolla. These are nectar guides for insects - the nectaries are deep inside the corolla. The five stamens unite into a cone over the 2 pistils of the two ovaries. The green calyx forming the base of the flower is much shorter than the corolla and has five pointed teeth.

Seed: Fertile flowers produce a pair of long, thin pods and when dry split along one side and release seeds which have white filaments attached for easy transport by air currents.

Habitat: The plant grows from rhizomes and can form colonies from the spreading of the rhizomes. Being a prairie plant it prefers full sun, loamy soil, mesic to dry conditions.

Names: It was the Greek writer of the 1st century, Dioscorides, who provided the Greek name “apokynon” from which comes the generic name Apocynum, and means "away from dog" - referencing the plants toxic nature if eaten by dogs, and thus - 'Dogbane'. Dioscorides, in naming a plant with red sap, also provided the species name, androsaemifolium. It begins with the two original Greek words meaning 'man's blood' and then translated to the Latin becomes 'androsaemum'. The 'folium' part of it means 'leaves of'. In total this can be said to be a reference to a plant with leaves that would have reddish juice. Some also have interpreted it as the reddish stain you get on your fingers if you crush together the flowers. The author name for the plant classification - 'L.' is for Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy.

Comparisons: A plant with somewhat similar flowers and seed pods, but different growing habit is Prairie Dogbane (Indian Hemp), Apocynum cannabinum, which is taller than Spreading Dogbane.