Strangler or milkweed vine, latexplant

Cynanchum odoratum Hooker & Arnott, J. Bot. (Hooker) 1: 294. 1835; Morrenia odorata (Hooker & Arnott) Lindley

Stems to 15 m. Leaves: petiole 0.5–4 cm, eglandular-pubescent; blade ovate, deltate, or hastate, 1.8–8 × 0.8–6 cm, base truncate to cordate, surfaces glabrous to eglandular-pubescent. Inflorescences: peduncle 0.1–0.7 cm, eglandular-pubescent. Pedicels 0.6–1.5 cm, eglandular-pubescent. Flowers: sepals green, lanceolate to oblong, not leaflike, 5–13 × 1–3 mm, surfaces eglandular-pubescent; calycine colleters present; corolla pale to waxy green, rotate, lobes 7–13 × 2–4 mm, abaxial surface eglandular-pubescent, adaxial surface glabrous; gynostegial corona a fused tube, 5–8 mm, obscuring gynostegium, glabrous; style-head extension absent. Follicles 8–12 × 2–7 cm, glabrous. Seeds brownish black to black, 5–6 × 1.5–2 mm; coma 2–5 cm. 2n = 22.

Flowering summer–fall; fruiting fall–winter. Citrus groves, roadsides, waste places, dunes, beaches; 0–100 m; introduced; Fla.; South America; introduced also in Central America.

Native to central South America, Araujia odorata was introduced to the United States as an ornamental in the 1930s and first observed in a citrus grove in Florida in 1957 (D. P. H. Tucker and R. L. Phillips 1974; D. L. Spellman and C. R. Gunn 1976).