A Butterfly Update

Cloudless sulfur recently emerged

 Perhaps the quickest change to any landscape is the appearance of butterflies. Even in suburban deserts such as I my landscape is surrounded by, butterflies find their way if their host plants are present. There is so much attention these days on creating pollinator gardens and wildflower meadows, but too many times these articles and posts fail to grasp the most important part - that butterflies do not need nectar sources nearly as much as they need a host plant to raise their young. When your total lifespan is likely to be less than a week as an adult, it is absolutely critical that you don't waste time producing the next generation.  

Butterflies are especially adept at finding their host plants. It is an evolutionary necessity.  Plants emit volatile organic compounds (VOC's) into the air and adult female butterflies are drawn by these chemicals to locate their suitable larval host plants. They don't do this to find nectar as it is not necessary. I have never heard of an adult butterfly dying of starvation because there was no nectar anywhere available to them. Though it is true that some plants are preferred over others, butterflies seem to do fine in the areas they occur in - feeding on something. That's not the case when it comes to larval host plants.

Knowing this, allows us to target the butterflies most likely to occur in our region and then to provide them the plants they need to produce more. Once these plants are made available, it often takes less than a few days to lure them into our landscapes.  Bees are not nearly as quick to respond and birds can take years to do so. When I first moved here nearly 3 years ago, I saw precious few butterflies. There simply was nothing to make them reside here with me. Since then, things have changed. I have the regular residents that I see daily and those that make brief or seasonal appearances. The former of those last two groups have yet to find me in earnest while the latter show up when a favorite host plant is ready for them and they leave when it passes. 

Today, I saw the first red admiral of the season and the first common buckeye that I remember here. In other places where I've lived previously, the red admirals have always appeared with the blooms on my native plums (Prunus spp.). It has seemed to draw them out though I do not have the false nettle (Boehmeria cylindrica)  that they prefer as a host plant. Although I leave some pellitory (Parietaria floridana) for them each year, I have never seen one use it to lay eggs on. The buckeye seems to prefer false foxglove (Agalinus spp.) in the wild and I don't have that either. They also are reported to use a variety of other species, but they've never been tempted in the past by the toadflax (Linaria canadensis) or twinflowers (Dyschoriste spp.) that I've left for them.  Maybe that's a regional thing as I know that many butterflies change preferences in different parts of their range, but here in central Florida, those other plants have been useless to me as host plants. These butterflies are, at beat, seasonal visitors and not ones that I will have much influence on.

My attention is drawn much more to the species I expect to "host."  I've had good success so far with most. My yard is constantly aflutter with the activity of two passionvine butterflies (Gulf fritillaries & zebra longwings), monarchs, cloudless and orange-barred sulfurs, and others. The Cassius blues are ever present around my nonnative blue plumbago (Plumbago auriculata). Giant swallowtails appear every time there is a new flush of growth on my key lime tree. Spicebush swallowtails lay eggs on the invasive nonnative camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora) that my landlords make me retain in the front yard. The silk bay (Persea humilis) has not matured enough to also serve as a host. Eastern black swallowtails appear every fall when my water dropwort (Tiedemannia filiformis) starts to flower, but they largely ignore my mock bishopsweed (Ptilimnium capillaceum) although I always let some go in my flats and pots. White peacocks decimate my water hyssop (Bacopa monnieri) each time it recovers. 

Last fall,  I added a nonnative pipevine (Aristolochia trilobata) that a friend gave me to feed both species of pipevine swallowtails. I do not expect to have the pipevine swallowtail find me in this suburban oasis, but lately I have witnessed several polydamas swallowtails in my yard and hovering near these vines. I am optimistic that I'll be raising these soon too. 

Some butterflies that I've planted for have yet to find me. Pearl crescents have yet to find my asters (Symphyotrichum spp.), checkered and great southern whites have not yet used the line of pepperweed (Lepidium virginicum) that I've left along the walkway, zebra swallowtails have not used my pawpaws (Asimina spp,), none of the many skippers and the gray hairstreak have found the Sida rhombifolia, and the grass skippers have yet to settle in on my native grasses, but this all is a work in progress. Very few of them would be here if all I did was add nectar plants and none of them are in my neighbors' landscapes except to fly over them.  While it is true that we can do some good by simply letting our landscapes go fallow or by letting the native "weeds" grow while controlling the nonnative ones, we only succeed to our highest potential by purposely planting the species that will allow us to be successful. That means that we add plants that serve as hosts. Why should we do less?