Plants can be up to six feet tall, but North Dakota specimens are usually only about half that height. The opposite leaves are up to 4 inches wide and 8 inches long and covered with fine white hairs, especially below. Inside these usually warted, pod-like structures are large seeds bearing white hairs nearly two inches long. Look for common milkweed from June through August on native prairie, roadsides, and most other open habitats that are not heavily grazed by livestock. Domestic livestock has been poisoned by milkweeds, but all milkweeds are distasteful to livestock, and losses occur only when animals are forced to eat these plants.
Common milkweed has a long history of use as human food.
The young shoots and well-filled follicles of this plant are edible if boiled with one or two changes of water. These were a staple of many Amerindian tribes and thought to be cultivated by some. The dried latex was chewed. The roots were used for various diseases of the lungs and thorax and were listed in the U. S. Pharmacopeia in the late 1800s. The follicles were also gathered during World War II for their fluffy seeds that substituted for kapok in emergency flotation devices.