# Asclepias Curassavica Flower



## chevyguy8893 (Nov 5, 2012)

I've had flower buds on my mexican milkweed for about a month now that grow in my sump, and they finally opened up almost a week ago. There is actually more flower buds getting ready to open, and more coming in. Just thought I would post up some pictures of them since they pretty nice looking.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

Nice job blooming that! That's the "gold" A. curassavica. 

How tall is the whole plant?


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## chevyguy8893 (Nov 5, 2012)

Thanks! I'm surprised it flowered so easily. You read my mind, I was going to search to see if there was a specific name for the flower color. 

Overall it is ~18" tall, but it is getting trimmed down tomorrow following the pictures you posted. It will be nice to fill in some open space.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

Yeah that one is probably the easiest of all riparium plants to bloom.

The wild species A. curassavica are yellow + scarlet red. I actually saw them once down in Mexico growing in the mud right along a river bank. 

It's easy to root cuttings from that plant: just suspend the cut stem bases in water.


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## chevyguy8893 (Nov 5, 2012)

That's great! It would be nice to see this flowering every so often to add some color above the water. 

Ah, that was the coloring that I was expecting since I couldn't find any other color. That is cool that you got to see those in person though.

Awesome, I was kinda nervous about trimming it since I thought I would kill it off, but it all sounds really easy to do. Thanks!


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

You can cut it back quite a bit. Just leave two or three leaf nodes above the base and they will bud and grow again pretty quick.

Here's the one that I have in my 50G post-pruning from a couple of weeks ago. It is now all covered with new leaves again.


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## chevyguy8893 (Nov 5, 2012)

Thanks, I am thinking of taking it down to a little over a half its current height. It does seem to like branching pretty well on its own, so it should be interesting to see if the branching is any different with trimming. The pieces I trim are going to hide some wires really well .


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