By Anita Westervelt, Texas Master Naturalist
A wet year in the Rio Grande Valley brings more native plants to flower. The more flowering plants, the more butterflies.
Unlike birds, butterflies don’t mind flying close to humans, sometimes landing on a person standing still and often zipping around while one works in the yard, oblivious to human presence.
It’s a banner year for butterflies with this year’s abundant nectar. Some of my favorites are the Phoebis Sulphurs, the very large yellow butterflies.
The Cloudless Sulphur, Phoebis sennae, Large Orange Sulphur, Phoebis agarithe, and the Orange-barred Sulphur, Phoebis philea are three of these big yellow butterflies that you may be seeing.
The Cloudless Sulphur is the paler yellow of the three with more distinguishing marks and a rim of brown wing fringe. It measures nearly two inches from top of forewing to bottom of hindwing when perching.
The Large Orange Sulphur is a deep yellow and the Orange-barred Sulphur, an even deeper yellow with a blush of orange on the hind wings. The Orange-barred Sulpher is the largest of these three.
Butterfly identification isn’t always easy. Butterflies have four wings; two on each side: the forewing and the hindwing. The upperside and underside of each wing usually has different patterns. Newly emerged butterflies are considered fresh while older ones may look worn or faded and the edges of their hind wings may be somewhat ragged.
To further complicate identification, males and females often differ in pattern. The big yellows are easy to see flying but hard to get close to to study.
Sulphurs perch with wings closed usually only showing their uppersides during flight. Many of the Valley’s more than 300 recorded butterfly species will nectar with wings spread, occasionally closing their wings which allows photographers to capture the same species in closed and open wing position. Most butterflies are easy to photograph when drawing nectar. Not so with these three Sulphurs. They flit quickly from flower to flower and are off again to neighboring plants and trees and out of sight with an attention span of a curious kitten.
A flash of orange close to my face one year had me running to my butterfly guidebook. Since the butterfly was huge, as far as butterflies go, and yellow, I started with the Sulphurs section. I was able to identify it as the Orange-barred Sulphur. Recognized as uncommon in Texas, but a regular in extreme south Texas, the male of the species has broad orange bars on the hind wings that flash an unmistakable orange color in flight.
Butterflies nectar on most anything that blooms, both native and non-native plants. Some say the most colorful plants are the most attractive to butterflies. That’s not necessarily true here as the wild olive tree is a great nectar source as are frostweed, heliotrope and plumbago, all of which have white blooms.
Not all flowers are equal in the nectar arena. Other excellent native nectar sources include cowpen daisy, scarlet sage, porterweed, fall-blooming mistflower, Turk’s cap, Mexican honeysuckle and Texas lantana.
Non-native plants with excellent nectar sources that are available locally include Poinciana bush, cape honeysuckle, and hibiscus.
For a list of Valley native plant growers visit www.rgvctmn.org.