New bill looks to make milkweed Illinois’s official wildflower

Posted on March 19, 2017
Lawmakers want to make milkweed, a poisonous weed, the official wildflower of Illinois. (Photo courtesy Flickr/Salim Virji)

By Illinois Radio Network

SPRINGFIELD – Some Illinois lawmakers want to make a poisonous weed a symbol of our state.

A bill awaiting a state House of Representatives vote would make the common milkweed the official wildflower of Illinois.

The aggressive and invasive plant gains its name from the milky substance inside of its stems and leaves. It’s poisonous to most commercial livestock but attracts monarch butterflies, the official state insect since 1975.

State Sen. Tom Rooney, R-Palatine, filed a bill that would have gotten rid of most all the state designations.

“Now we’re trying to connect state symbols to each other,” Rooney said. “If this isn’t the next level of ridiculousness, I don’t know what is.”

Rooney contends that the state’s symbols have gotten so numerous that they have stopped mattering.

“It would be the 20-something-th, the 30-something-th and then the 40-something-th if this legislature doesn’t knock it off,” Rooney explained.

The bill is sponsored by state Rep. Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, who also has a bill that would ban counties and municipalities from classifying the plant as noxious or exotic.

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