Milkweed flowers

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Milkweed is native to the Americas and are best known as being the source of food for Monarch butterfly catapillars.

There flowers are about a quarter inch across and grow in clusters. Here is what Wikipedia says about them:

[Milkweed] produce some of the most complex flowers in the plant kingdom, comparable to orchids in complexity. Five petals reflex backwards revealing a gynostegium (fused stamen filamens and styles) surrounded by a five-membrane corona. The corona is composed of a five paired hood and horn structure with the hood acting as a sheath for the inner horn. Glands holding pollinia are found between the hoods.

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Here is a cluster of flower buds, the flowers lower down on the plant open first and the ones near the top of the plant open later.

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This cluster has some flowers that have opened and some that have not.

I took all these photos with a Nikon D800 camera.

Milkweed flowers | Ecency