The History of Milkweed

Milkweed has been used throughout history, yet has never been successfully commercialized. For instance…

Herb Knudsen - Buy Milkweed The French tried weaving silky soft fabrics with the clusters in the 1600's. Native Americans swaddled their young and lined their buffalo robes with the warm clusters. The sap from the plant has been used to remove warts and age spots.

In 1753, Carl Linneaus named milkweed Asclepias, after the Greek god of healing. People used milkweed for many home remedies and the uses for milkweed seemed endless.

During World War II, school children collected the milkweed pods and the fluff was used as a filling for Mae West Life Jackets. The motto of the day was, "Two bags save one life." meaning two bags of milkweed would keep a downed serviceman afloat for days.

During the energy crisis in the late 1970's, Standard Oil of Ohio used Milkweed biomass to produce synthetic crude oil, unfortunately, the project was not cost effective.

Kimberly-Clark Corporation worked with Standard Oil to develop nonwoven products and facial tissues that incorporated Milkweed Clusters. A small niche market in the facial tissue industry would consume about 40 million pounds of clusters annually. At that time, the Milkweed Cluster inventory was about 10,000 pounds and the project was abandoned.