If you have milkweeds in your garden, count yourself among the lucky! These wonderful weeds have served as a powerful medicine (their generic name, Asclepias comes from the Greek god of medicine), as a traditional Native American food, and as an important fiber plant. During World War II, milkweed silk was used to stuff life jackets. Milkweeds also serve as the royal nursery and larder for the monarch caterpillar, and provide plant toxins that make the adult butterfly distasteful to predators. One showy milkweed you and your visiting monarchs are sure to enjoy is Butterfly weed (A. tuberosa), also called pleurisy root because it was used to treat lung ailments.