Milkweed question???

[DanaM]

Thats it, you can make cordage from the stalks, seed pods =wind indicator, the flowers before they open are edible, kinda band but edible

[Otoe Bow]

Holy cow Steve, I logged on and thought I hit the OSU extension site by mistake.  All those molecules and stuff "scir'd" me. 

After seeing the article in PA on Milk Weed Cordage, I've had my eye on a lot of milk weed lately.

Can't wait.

Mike

[sailordad]

can the cordage thats made from milkweed be used as bow strings?

[DanaM]

Tim it most certainly can

[jamie]

if you use it as bow material you need to do a very good job of removing the chaff ( outer bark) . it creates a week spot and is nothing but dead weight if you leave it on. im going to put an article together for the mag on using plant fibers for strings. i really delved into it this month to figure out the easiest way to produce clean fibers quickly without having to rett it. retting is the best method but waiting 3-4 weeks for the outer bark to rot just isnt practical at times. peace

[bowtarist]

Let's not forget the stuff is toxic. If retting you need to make sure your animals and kids stay out of it.

[Zuma]

Informative thread.
Zuma

[bubbles]

Is it toxic?  The young pods are edible, people make fritters from the flowers, and apparently the young stalks are also quite edible. You can buy pickled milkweed pods from Forbes wild foods, and I've eaten quite a few of the pods myself.

[nclonghunter]

I think some of this is crossing over on itself. I don't think milkweed is really all that toxic but I may be wrong.
Dogbane or Indian hemp on the other hand is very poisonous. Cattleman hate it because it can make cows sick and even kill them. I gather my dogbane in the late fall when the stalk has hardened to a dark reddish hue. You will also notice it has thin black looking pods hanging from the limbs. They are like a super skinny green bean pods. I usually cut it at ground level and then cut it agin at the first branch. Around here that gives me about a 2 1/2 foot stalk. I use my knife to lightly scrape the surface bark or thin layer off. Then crush it along it's length getting several separate long pieces. You can the go from one end to the other breaking 2 inch pieces along its length and pilling the fibers away from the inner core. You can get great fibers the full length of the stalk in one piece.
Dogbane seems to be a fluffy soft cordage but very strong. Watch in fields for thin tall dark stalks and then look closer for the thin dangling pencil lead pods....Good luck

[son of massey]

Interesting link. Where is that from? The only issue I saw was 'figure A', or at least the first picture, talks about the steroid as an aglycan when there is a sugar bound to it, so it is glycosylated. Later on when they show the OH instead of the glycan it is appropriately an aglycan. End of the day though, the stuff is bad for you so be careful. Digitalis, one of the molecules listed in the linked information, I think was the poison the twins used in the episode of the X-Files called Eve. I don't know how accurate the show was, but they described it as being very sweet flavored so perhaps if you have worked with the material and taste anything on your fingers that is oddly sweet call poison control ASAP.

SOM