Genus of chiefly North American perennial herbs silkweed

• Milkweed

The Collaborative International Dictionary Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Asclepias \As*cle"pi*as\, n. [L., fr. Gr. ?, named from Asclepios or Aesculapius.] (Bot.) A genus of plants including the milkweed, swallowwort, and some other species having medicinal properties. Asclepias butterfly (Zo["o]l.), a large, handsome, red and ...

Wikipedia Word definitions in Wikipedia
Asclepias L. (1753), the milkweeds , is an American genus of herbaceous perennial , dicotyledonous plants that contains over 140 known species. It previously belonged to the family Asclepiadaceae, but this is now classified as the subfamily Asclepiadoideae ...