According to what I've read - I haven't tried this - the milky sap is poisonous to people if they ingest it. I also know from experience of people on this forum that it can be damaging to your eyes. One poster had to go to the doctor and had serious issues from it. I once had some extreme eye irritation, and the only thing I could figure caused it was maybe I didn't wash my hands at some point when I was raising monarchs and rubbed my eyes, getting a trace of it into one of my eyes.

There is a big difference in the amount of the milky stuff in various milkweeds. Some are loaded with it, like my A. curassavica, but A. incarnata and A. tuberosa have very little.

The old books say that this stuff protects monarch caterpillars from being eaten by predators, but one time when I was raising monarchs in sleeves, while I was cleaning out the sleeve, a wasp came in and killed my poor little caterpillar. It could easily have stung me. I've also found that, although pipevine swallowtail caterpillars are preyed on far less than other cats, they're not immune to predators, like the books say. There are certain predatory stink bugs that will eat them. Either rabbits or deer ate all my Aristolochia serpentaria that I had planted in my woods, so mammals can take aristolochic acid, too.

I'm saying all this, because I don't have much wild milkweed growing on my property, just some low-sap A. longifolia. I can't say for sure that milkweed isn't poisonous to mammals, but considering my experiences with Aristolochia and the wasp eating the monarch, I don't think it bothers them. We all know that birds can eat berries that are poisonous to us, so, apparently wildlife can tolerate things that we can't.

Sherry

Thanks for the input Sherry. I'm fairly sure that A. syriaca and A. tuberosa are poisonous to deer as they are known to be toxic to livestock and the herds of deer that roam this property eat anything and everything but haven't touched either of these. I am guessing that rabbits may be able to tolerate the sap. A. quadrifolia's leaf are very tender unlike those of many other Asclepias species so maybe that's what makes them so appetizing....*sigh* I am sorry to hear about your little cat...I have seen wasps hunting for cats and moths in the early morning....nothing seems to get in their way :(

The only thing I can say about growing things when you have lots of deer and rabbits around is HIDE THEM!!!! I hid my trillium luteum under a tent of sticks this yr and for the first time in 3 yrs it got to keep its leaves and its flower!