Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Cynanchum angustifolium Pers.
- Family: Milkweed (Asclepiadaceae)
- Flowering: June-July
- Field Marks: This climbing member of the milkweed family has very slender stems, linear leaves less than 1/4 inch wide, and umbel-like clusters of small greenish white flowers.
- Habitat: Brackish marshes and coastal shores, hammocks.
- Habit: Slender twining herb, climbing over vegetation.
- Stems: Slender, twining, up to 4 feet long or longer, hairy at first but smooth at maturity.
- Leaves: Opposite, simple, linear, pointed at the tip, tapering to the sessile base, up to 3 1/2 inches long, less than 1/4 inch wide, toothless, smooth or sparsely hairy.
- Flowers: Few in axillary, umbel-like clusters; stalks of the flower clusters a little shorter to a little longer than the leaves; individual flowers up to 1/4 inch across.
- Sepals: 5, green, united below, up to 1/6 inch long.
- Petals: 5, greenish white, sometimes rose-tinged.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Follicles narrowly lanceoloid, sparsely short-hairy, up to 2 1/2 inches long, up to 1/3 inch wide.
- Notes: This species is sometimes known as Cynanchum palustre.
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