I have just tried an experiment, based on a suggestion made by one of the readers who commented on Tony's Monarch butterfly garden website, link below. Scroll down a bit and you will see a photo of her container with A tuberosa seed sprouting in water.
http://monarchbutterflygarden....
Late in the day on Mar 31, I placed dry A tuberosa seed (NO cold moist stratification) into a clear container with about 1 cup of distilled water and 1/8 teaspoon of Hydrogen Peroxide mixed in. Put the clear lid on the container and set it under my grow lights (as the writer suggested and presumably for the warmth). About two days later, I had radicles showing on a few of the seed. I took 4 of these seed and placed in a 3"pot of damp ProMix, sprinkled a bit of potting mix over them, covered the little pot with a sandwich baggie with a small hole in the top and set back under the lights. April 6 ... I had 3 seed pushing up. Six days to seedlings is great. The seedlings look strong.
I've since taken more of these seed, planted into a small pot of damp ProMix and set on a north facing windowsill, to see if the seed will germinate under normal indoor temps, without benefit of the warmth of the grow lights.
The seed used is seed I saved in 2015 from a heavy blooming A tuberosa plant in my garden (hoping it's capacity to produce so many blooms over such a long period of time might be passed along
)
I have had trouble keeping some of these plants alive here in my garden (I think too wet in some situations)
so this year, these new seedlings are going into a raised bed with soil amended with builders sand, hoping this will help to create a more natural growing condition.
I have observed this milkweed growing in the wild on an extremely steep slope, in the middle of a hot summer, healthy and happily blooming. They're obviously tough little plants, once established in their preferred growing conditions.
Myles