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Butterfly Garden

Climbing Milk Vine question

14 years ago

I saw somewhere on the web that Climbing Milk vine was invasive and also that although Butterlies lay their eggs on it the cats won't live! I have a Climbing Milk vine that I grew from seeds I got in the Butterfly seed trade a few years ago. I am puzzled..was the internet source correct or wrong? Sorry I don't have the link to include.

Joann

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Comments (8)

MissSherry
14 years ago
There are several milkweed vines, but the one I have is Cynanchum laeve/honeyvine. I can only tell you about my experiences with it.
I don't get many visits from monarchs, so as a result, don't get many monarch eggs/cats on any milkweed. One year, a female laid many eggs on my honeyvine, and I reared the cats on it, because the other milkweed was all gone. It was good that the vine is aggressive and grows rapidly, because the cats ate SO many leaves, it took all of them. Honeyvine doesn't have the "milk" that other MWs do, so maybe that's why it took so many of them? I don't know, but all the cats lived and emerged as perfect adults. I think I've got a picture of two of them, I'll check.
The vine itself is somewhat invasive here, but I just pull it up where I don't want it. It is NOT poisonous to monarchs - I don't know where this internet source is, but a lot of people must be reading and believing it, because they ask about it a lot. I personally love it, because I have trouble growing other milkweeds - only swamp MW/A. incarnata and tropical MW/A. curassavica are easy for me to grow.
Here's the picture -
{{gwi:482010}}
As a bonus, honeyvine flowers attract a lot of interesting bugs and butterflies. They smell strongly of coconut oil, and hairstreaks especially show up on them.
Sherry
bananasinohio
14 years ago
I will second Sherry on this one. The only time I have had monarchs in my yard is when I have this vine in my yard. This is an important host plant for the monarch as it is abundant in places that milkweeds may not be. Maybe I will become the mini "Larry" for this board and start grumbling about people posting "information" on the web. If you go to Google and put in Cynanchum laeve and Danaus plexippus and enter the scholar search there are lots of articles citing the use of this plant as a host by monarchs. I think the concern is Dog Strangler vine (Vincetoxicum sp.). That is toxic to the caterpillars.

Cynanchum is "invasive" for some people and not for others and is a native plant to the U.S.. It has a lovely honey fragrance and hence is called "honeyvine" as well.
-Elisabeth
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ghoghunter
Original Author
14 years ago
I found the post on the Name That Plant forum. Someone posted a picture of what looks like the Milkweed vine and the answer and link lead to cynanchum but the poison one. I included the post and the link is there if you follow it. That's how I got confused. I didn't realize there are 2 Cynanchums and I am not sure this man has the poison one or the good one.

Here is a link that might be useful: cynanchum link
bananasinohio
14 years ago
Don't worry, I am not giving you a hard time. Larry likes to give us a hard time, lovingly, about not using scientific names, and this is a good example. If you go to the USDA Plant Facts website (which is an excellent website with all kinds of information on what is native and where it occurs) there are 16 different Cynanchums in the US. Many of which have the name "swallow-wort".

The plant in the post does not look like Cynanchum laeve, so they may be right.
-Elisabth
larry_gene
14 years ago
From the "Monarch hostplants" FAQ:

Cynanchum angustifolium
USA
common names:(Gulf Coast swallowwart, milkweed vine)

and
C. laeve
Nearctic
synonyms: Gonolobus laevis, C. sinaloense, Ampelamus albidus
common names:([sand, blue, honey]vine; [honeyvine, climbing]milkweed; angle pod, vine milkweed)
ghoghunter
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks so much for clearing this up for me! I always learn so much here!
Joann
avid_gardener
14 years ago
There are many milkweed vines. (Cynanchum laeve) vine is definitely a very common species. USDA (hyperlink below) shows references to two southeast counties of PA being mentioned. Knowing how easy it spreads, this probably means it is not native to most of Pennsylvania. The toxic milkweed vine (Cynanchum spp.) you mentioned is most likely a synonym for the appropriate (Vincetoxicum spp.) species, that as far as I know are all native to Eurasia -- which look and grow similar to (Cynanchum) species. As for the milkiness of (Cynanchum laeve), it does has milky sap, but it is hard to recognize. Other obvious genus of milkweed vines include (Matelea) and (Funastrum).
A quick search on species from these two genus in Pennsylvania show that (Matelea obliqua) has more distribution references in Pennsylvania than does (Cynanchum Laeve).

Here is a link that might be useful: USDA
terrene
14 years ago
The Cynanchum species that you probably "heard" about, is Cynanchum louiseae (formerly known as C. nigrum or Vincetoxicum nigrum), common names Louise's swallowwort or Black swallowwort. This species is NOT native to North America, it is native to Europe, and has proved to be a very invasive species in my region. It has been prohibited in 4 New England states.

I have heard that Monarchs will lay eggs on this vine, sensing that it is a Milkweed, however the foliage is toxic to the larvae. This is quoted from Wikipedia:

"Cynanchum louiseae crowds out another species of milkweed that monarch butterflies use in order to reproduce. When monarch butterflies try to reproduce using Cynanchum louiseae, the larvae do not survive. Thus, Cynanchum louiseae threatens populations of monarch butterflies."

Here is a link that might be useful: Cynanchum louiseae - Wikipedia

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