Butterfly Milkweed Print
Butterfly Milkweed Print
Size
12 × 18 in overall, unframed. The plate sits on an ivory sheet with a border of about an inch, so it fits a standard ready-made frame of the same size, with or without a mat.
Printed on 189 g/m² (10.3 mil) enhanced matte paper.
Want it ready to hang? The same plate comes framed in Black or Red Oak.
Walcott's orange milkweed, painted life-size.
The print
- The full plate with its name, legend and credits, re-rendered from the source scan at print size, not enlarged from a shirt file.
- Restored from a library scan of the original book; nothing redrawn.
- Keep out of direct sunlight; a frame with glass or acrylic keeps it clean.
Shipping & production
Each print is printed for you after you order, usually within 2–5 business days, and ships on its own (separate from any shirts or framed prints in the same order). Shipping is shown at checkout before you pay.
Returns
If your print arrives damaged or misprinted, contact us within 30 days of delivery with a photo and we'll send a replacement or a refund. Because every print is made to order, we can't accept returns for a change of mind.
Plate 019
From the book
- Species
- Asclepias tuberosa
- As named in the book
- Butterfly Weed.
- Artist
- Mary Vaux Walcott
- Book
- North American Wild Flowers, vol. I, pl. 36, 1925
“The butterflyweed is probably our most beautiful orange-colored wild flower.”
Then and now
One of the milkweeds monarch caterpillars feed on.
Field notes
A milkweed whose sap isn't milky.
Mary Vaux Walcott painted it life-size for the Smithsonian in 1925 and wrote that it was "probably our most beautiful orange-colored wild flower," visited by hosts of butterflies.
She also noticed what sets it apart: "Curiously enough, however, its juice is not milky." Most milkweeds bleed white sap when broken; this one runs clear. Below ground it sends down a deep taproot, sometimes several feet, which is why it shrugs off drought and resents being moved.
It earns the name. Butterflies crowd its flat orange flower heads in summer, and monarchs lay eggs on it: like other milkweeds, it's a food plant for their caterpillars.