Climbing Milkvine
Matelea obliqua
Native to Mississippi. How scores work Is it native here?
Profile 47%
Will it fit your yard?
Rare or protected plant. Specialist conservation planting; excluded from routine garden suggestions. Plant caution source
Hidden from default planting suggestions. Wildlife value and native status remain unchanged.
At a glance
- Life cycle
- Perennial
- Leaves
- Deciduous
Not yet recorded · Height · Spread · Light · Soil · Bloom
Height and bloom: NC species account not read yet.
Spread, light and soil: no source found yet.
This plant is missing most of its facts, so Quercus is looking them up in old botany books.
Recorded in 21 Mississippi counties.
Who uses this plant?
2CaterpillarsGenus host records with ranges including MS
Genus host records with ranges including MS · Matelea
- Danaus plexippusMonarch
- Danaus gilippusQueen
No records yet · Ants · Beetles · Flies · Adult butterflies / moths · Other wasps · Other insects
Plant details
- Family
- Apocynaceae
- Flower color
- Red or purple
What its natural habitat tells you
Growing sources and scope
- Flower color · “Red or purple” · Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
- Leaves · “Deciduous” · Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
- Life cycle · “Perennial” · Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Also known as
Climbine Spinypod; Limerock Milkvine; Limerock Spinypod
Conservation status
| Mississippi rank | S2 |
|---|---|
| Global rank | G4? |
| MS status | Not verified |
| Federal status | Not verified |
Will it fit your yard?
Check this plant against your county, sun and soil moisture. Conditions are checked in your browser.
Sources
- NatureServe Explorer
- USDA PLANTS
- Vascular Plants of North Carolina (NC Natural Heritage Program)
- Weakley, Flora of the Southeastern United States (2025)
- Mississippi occurrence source
- Shropshire & Tallamy 2025, Lepidoptera of North America north of Mexico, ZooKeys 1261 (ODbL)
- Noori, Seltmann & Orr 2026, A curated and integrated dataset for exploring global bee-plant interactions (GloBI), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Smith, Bachelder, Russell, Morales, Mosher & Seltmann 2024, Bee-Specialization-Modeling v0.6.1 (specialist host table compiled from J. Fowler's pollen specialist bee lists), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Hurlbert, Olsen, Sawyer & Winner 2021, Avian Diet Database, Scientific Data 8: 260 (CC0)
- Narango, Tallamy & Shropshire 2020, Few keystone plant genera support the majority of Lepidoptera species, Nature Communications

