Fall beauties.

The white mistflower (Agaratina havanensis) is blooming in my garden, in a profusion not seen here before. The mistflower is native from Central Texas south into Mexico. In and of itself, it is beautiful when in bloom. But when butterflies flutter all around it, drawn by its heady fragrance wafting on a breeze . . . well, it becomes sublime.

Red admiral (Vanessa atalanta)
is the most common visitor.

I've never seen this butterfly here before;
it is a bordered patch (Chlosyne lacinia 
adjutrix). The adjutrix  is a Texas subspecies.

I have spent time the past two days sitting on a pile of rocks next to this bush with camera in hand. I can’t really describe how fabulous this is: perched two feet away from buzzing bees and fluttering butterflies, including some new-to-me types, all so intent on this little bush with its multitude of tiny white blooms that they quickly forget I am here.  They are busy harvesting the last nectar of the year before cooler weather arrives.

Queens (Danaus gilippus) are frequent visitors on our blue mistflower; guess they like this, too!

This was one of those transcendent natural experiences.

Well, I'm not sure but I think
this is an American painted lady
(Vanessa virginiensis).

The Texan crescent (Anthanassa 
texana) is new to me, also.

Have you ever had one of those experiences? While outside somewhere, you happen upon something so cool, so beautiful, so interesting that you will never forget it? For me, it usually happens when it is very quiet and I am alone.

Twenty years ago we lived in the middle of a 10-acre hay pasture. Bluebonnets covered the pasture in the spring; it was absolutely beautiful. One quiet day in early summer I stepped outside and heard the oddest popping sounds all around me. I stopped and looked around, trying to determine the origin of the sounds. I saw nothing, but quickly realized that I was hearing bluebonnet seedpods popping open all over the pasture. I stood there listening with a big grin on my face, looking over the pasture in amazement. Yes, I still remember that moment.

My first i.d. of this one, too:  pearl crescent (Phyciodes tharos).

This tattered fellow appears
to be a variegated fritillary
(Euptoieta claudia).

This memory of communing with and observing butterflies on the mistflower will stay with me, also. When I’m looking out the window on a cold gray winter day, wishing for summer, I will unpack this memory, and relive those joyous moments, sitting with butterflies under a warm November sun.

Enter the ravenous hordes.

Variegated fritillary (Euptoieta claudia).
These beautiful creatures really love
violas, and have stripped mine bare!

In a previous post, I wrote about the butterfly brigades conducting maneuvers at our house.  Since then, we have spotted more types of butterflies here, including monarchs and a new one for me:  variegated fritillary.

A little later, a light bulb illuminated the dim recesses of my brain:  all these butterflies are probably laying eggs, and caterpillars will follow.

Sure enough, we started seeing the larval forms of the butterflies. Unfortunately, we don’t really know one caterpillar from the next.  Also, unless you really lean over and peer, you won’t see most caterpillars.

So the little darling and I decided to go on a caterpillar hunt one evening. I grabbed Butterfly Gardening for the South, by Geyata Ajilvsgi, which contained a short list of larval food plants. Smarty that I am, I thought I could look at plants listed there, find caterpillars, take photos and positively identify our visitors. Easy, right?

This is either a monarch (Danaus plexippus)
or a queen (Danaus gilippus); a strategically placed leaf
conceals whether it has the third pair of tentacles of a queen.
It is happily dining on antelope horns, a native milkweed.

Unfortunately for me, the list that I remembered as short was in fact pages and pages long. Instead, we checked some plants we knew we had seen caterpillars munching on, and looked up some others that looked tasty to us. We were wrong on some of those, as indeed, we are not caterpillars and probably don’t have the same taste preferences. (I will note that a caterpillar of some sort really likes the Swiss chard, which I also like. My daughter would note that Swiss chard is disgusting.)

Eight-spotted forester moth larva
(Alypia octomaculata) enjoys
Virginia creeper for dinner.

The genista moth caterpillar

(Uresiphita reversalis) is a pest

 on Texas mountain laurel,

but I saw only a few this time.

.

   

These photos portray some of our findings from that evening and other outings. We saw some interesting ones when we had no camera, one of which was white with long hairs and very, very cool. And of course, a number of the caterpillars are moth larvae.

This bristly fellow is possibly
a giant leopard moth
(Hypercompe scribonia).

Our fascination with caterpillars is not universal. I hear and read fellow gardeners lamenting the onslaught of caterpillars decimating precious plants. Our main casualties have been the aforementioned chard, and the Johnny-jump-ups, which have been completely stripped of foliage.

Mystery caterpillar. Any ideas?

For me, the joy of having masses of butterflies in my garden far outweighs the dismay at the damage their larvae can do.  They are welcome here any time

 Favorite spot in the garden:

The lantana are are dry enough that they continue to bloom, and are beautiful next to the artemisia. The Mexican feather grass in the rear self-sowed serendipitously and forms a graceful background, providing movement to the grouping.  Behind the grass is our lovely little native prairie Brazoria.

Rioting in the garden

My garden is a riot of color. Between the blooms and the butterflies - oh my. I can't show all that is blooming this April Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (hosted by May Dreams Gardens), but I'll give you a sampling.

In my flower beds, the yarrow (Achillea millefolium var. occidentalis) is putting on an eye-catching show.

Other flowers showing their colors include Texas lantana (Lantana urticoides) and the Engelmann daisies (Engelmannia peristenia). The daisies are showy on the roadsides in our area right now.

Blackfoot daisies (Melampodium leucanthum) continue blooming.

Cedar sages (Salvia roemeriana) continue to brighten a few shady areas. I want to spread these all over my property!

Out in the wild, lots more things are blooming. The two most prolific bloomers - in order of numbers - are the Drummond's skullcap (Scutellaria drummondii), which are carpeting the ground all around my house, and the prairie verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida), both shown in this picture.

The prickly pear began blooming this week. I'm not sure, but we may have the Texas prickly pear (Opuntia engelmannii var. lindheimeri). The butterflies are so prevalent, you can hardly take a flower picture without one muscling its way into the frame. I think this is a painted lady, though it looks a little different than in my book.

Texas stars (Lindheimera texana - right) are still blooming, getting larger as the season advances.












The little darlings above have the most wonderful lemon smell when crushed underfoot; and I have just this minute figured out what they are:  annual pennyroyal (Hedeoma acinoides). They are native only to Texas, on limestone.

Zexmenia (Wedelia texana) has begun blooming. Last year, with the drought, it did not bloom at all. This is one of my favorite wildflowers here.

That's about it from the hill. Be sure to visit May Dreams Gardens to see what's blooming all over the place!

Butterfly brigades

You all know about the no-good, very bad year – 2011.  Pitiful amounts of rain resulted in very few blooms. Very few blooms meant no food for traveling butterflies.

Over the winter months, however, we have had rain, and lots of it. The trees, grasses and wildflowers are rejoicing, and putting on a great show of life. And like old friends we haven’t seen in awhile, butterflies have come a-visiting.

Red admiral. The picture isn't upside down, the butterfly is!

In particular, we have an army (battalion? squadron? platoon?) of red admirals (Vanessa atalanta). These are regular visitors here, but this year their numbers are impressive. As I walk or drive on the driveway, they rise up in waves. They flutter around everywhere we walk.

According to Greta Ajjilvsgi in Butterfly Gardening for the South, “the Red Admiral is one of the best known and most widespread butterflies.” Its larval food plants are nettles. It spends time on the ground at moist places (hence its presence on my driveway), and rests on vertical surfaces with its head down. It feeds on sap, fruit and animal droppings, along with various flowers.

Yesterday, I went out to snap pictures, thinking these fellows were sipping nectar from a large patch of prairie verbenas. They were, but really they were more interested in the blooms of the nearby Texas persimmons (which have a heavenly scent, by the way).

Butterfly Central!

Checkered skipper

Painted lady

In the process of documenting the red admiral invasion, I discovered other butterflies visiting, also:  painted ladies, (Vanessa cardui) Checkered skipper (Pyrgus communis), and other unidentified ones. Oddly enough, butterflies don’t hold still for my camera like flowers will.

Most interesting was an eye-catching moth, black with large white patches on its wings. I’ve never seen this critter here before, but (thanks to Peterson First Guides Butterflies and Moths) it is an eight-spotted forester  (Alypia octomaculata).  This moth is diurnal (instead of nocturnal like most moths), with two pale yellow patches on each forewing, and two white patches on each hind wing. It has “tufts of orange hair-like scales” on its legs and yellow shoulders (who knew moths had shoulders?). Quite a few of these are fluttering around the persimmons. Larval food sources are grapes and Virginia creeper, both of which grow here.

Butterflies make me happy. Sounds sappy and cutesy, I know, but I can’t help it. They make me smile.

Welcome home, old and new friends. My outlook is sunnier for your presence!