MilkweedUSA

Native Subspecies of Pallid Milkweed

Davis’s Milkweed

Asclepias cryptoceras subsp. davisii (Woodson) Woodson

The Great Basin and Columbia Plateau plant, smaller-flowered, running from Nevada north into Oregon, Idaho and just over the Washington line.

Also called Humboldt Mountains Milkweed.

How to tell it apart

Smaller in flower: corolla lobes 8 to 11 mm, crown segments 5 to 6 mm, and the crown tips reach only as high as the central column or fall short of it. Clusters hold 3 to 8 flowers on shorter stalks, and the leaves are hairless.

Compare with subsp. cryptoceras. Everything else about the plant, including how to grow it and what it is worth to monarchs, is on the pallid milkweed page.

Where it grows

Grows lower and drier than the typical subspecies, down to 300 m on basalt and serpentine steppe. It barely enters Washington, in Asotin County, where it is exceedingly rare and of conservation concern.

Alaska: not recorded Maine: not recorded Vermont: not recorded New Hampshire: not recorded Washington: recorded Idaho: recorded Montana: not recorded North Dakota: not recorded Minnesota: not recorded Illinois: not recorded Wisconsin: not recorded Michigan: not recorded New York: not recorded Massachusetts: not recorded Rhode Island: not recorded Oregon: recorded Nevada: recorded Wyoming: not recorded South Dakota: not recorded Iowa: not recorded Indiana: not recorded Ohio: not recorded Pennsylvania: not recorded New Jersey: not recorded Connecticut: not recorded California: recorded Utah: not recorded Colorado: not recorded Nebraska: not recorded Missouri: not recorded Kentucky: not recorded West Virginia: not recorded Virginia: not recorded Maryland: not recorded Delaware: not recorded Arizona: not recorded New Mexico: not recorded Kansas: not recorded Arkansas: not recorded Tennessee: not recorded North Carolina: not recorded South Carolina: not recorded District of Columbia: not recorded Texas: not recorded Oklahoma: not recorded Louisiana: not recorded Mississippi: not recorded Alabama: not recorded Georgia: not recorded Hawaii: not recorded Florida: not recorded
Recorded in 5 states. Shading is generalized to whole states.

Distribution follows the Flora of North America treatment, United States only. Pallid Milkweed as a whole is recorded in 10 states.

Flowering

Davis’s Milkweed blooms April to July, peaking in May. Plants reach 4 in–1 ft.

Other names

This plant has also been published as Asclepias davisii, Asclepias cryptoceras var. davisii. Those names refer to the same taxon and you will meet them in older floras and in some databases.

References

The description, distribution and synonymy here follow Mark Fishbein’s treatment of Asclepias in Flora of North America vol. 14 (2023).

Cite this page

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APA Milkweed USA. (2026). Davis’s Milkweed (Asclepias cryptoceras subsp. davisii). Retrieved DATE, from https://milkweedusa.com/species/pallid-milkweed/davisii/
MLA "Davis’s Milkweed (Asclepias cryptoceras subsp. davisii)." Milkweed USA, 2026, https://milkweedusa.com/species/pallid-milkweed/davisii/. Accessed DATE.
Chicago Milkweed USA. "Davis’s Milkweed (Asclepias cryptoceras subsp. davisii)." Last modified 2026-08-01. Accessed DATE. https://milkweedusa.com/species/pallid-milkweed/davisii/.
BibTeX @misc{milkweedusa_speciespallidmilkweeddavisii, title = {Davis’s Milkweed (Asclepias cryptoceras subsp. davisii)}, author = {{Milkweed USA}}, year = {2026}, url = {https://milkweedusa.com/species/pallid-milkweed/davisii/}, note = {Accessed DATE} }