Author: Brenda Clements Jones

Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.

Variegated Fritillary

Unlike other Fritillaries, that exclusively use native Violets as their host plant, the Variegated Fritillary depends on many plants as its host plant including those Violets and also Passion Vine, Pansy, Purslane, Mayapple, Flax, and others.

The Variegated Fritillary has a “long” life as an adult compared to some other butterflies, living between two and ten weeks. Some portion of those weeks as a butterfly are spent nectaring at flowers such as Asters, Common Milkweed, Dogbane, Thistles, Coneflowers, Tithonia, and Ironweed.

Variegated Fritillaries are found in South and North America, in moist meadows and woodland edges.

Creamy white, reddish-orange, metallic blue with shiny black hairy spines. Here with the typical Fritillary host plant, a native Violet leaf. So many caterpillars are amazing. This is one of them!

Spicebush Swallowtail Caterpillar

Several days ago I wrote about the adult Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus). The caterpillar of that beautiful butterfly has an impressive set of eyespots giving the caterpillar the look of a small snake which protects it from predators. The actual eyes are quite small, about the size of a pinpoint, located down the head, close to the mouth.

The Spicebush Swallowtail goes through five instars, or caterpillar stages, taking three to four weeks. In the first four of those instars the caterpillar looks much like bird poop with small false eyespots that get larger as each instar emerges. Like those eyespots, the bird poop camouflage works well as a protection against predators.

An element on the eyespot really impresses me. There is a white spot on the black pupil, a faux reflection! As the fifth instar ages, it goes from bright green to rich sunshine yellow leaning toward orange. Once the Spicebush Swallowtail reaches the adult and butterfly stage, it lives for just six to fourteen days nectaring on many flowers including jewelweed, milkweed, and thistle.

Tiger Bee Fly

Nothing to worry about, though it reminds me of a Horsefly. Actually something to cheer about. This is a Tiger Bee Fly (Xenox tigrinus). It doesn’t show any aggression toward humans. No stinging. No biting.

Measuring in at one-half to three-quarter inch long, the Tiger Bee Fly is an insect of the family Bombyliidae (bee flies), which is native to the eastern United States and southern Ontario. It’s a wonderful pollinator in our gardens with an extra SUPER benefit that is brought to our homes and yards. The female Tiger Bee Fly lays her eggs near the entrance to Carpenter Bee nests. As her larvae hatch they enter the Carpenter Bee nests and eat those larvae. A parasite of Carpenter Bees! I must put out a sign saying, “Welcome Tiger Bee Flies!”

Silverleaf Mountain Mint

A native mint that has intrigued me for years living trailside here on the mountain. I’ve found it available at a native plant nursery and now I have some in my gardens. Silverleaf Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum incanum). Native to eastern North America.

The nectar of this Mountain Mint is popular with bees and butterflies. The flowers are white, sometimes tinged with lavender, sometimes dotted with purple speckles. I like those speckles!

The leaves of Silverleaf Mountain Mint are indeed silvery. Very dense but short, incredibly soft white hairs cover the leaves and the stems giving them that beautiful color. Stems that, like other mints, are square.

Silverleaf Mountain Mint spreads easily into dense clumps. Some say it is an aggressive grower. I’m looking forward to that. Bring it on!

Japanese Beetle

A dear friend this morning at yoga asked me if I had anything good to say about Japanese Beetles (Popillia japonica). After giving it some thought, I can say, yes indeed. They sure are pretty!

The Japanese Beetle is a species of scarab beetle, native to Japan where they are pretty well behaved or at least kept under control by natural predators. Here in North America it is a different story, as you probably know. I was quite surprised when I moved to the mountains of central Virginia to find that these beetles eat what seems like, most anything. Not just fancy garden plants such as roses. Their larvae feed on the roots of many types of grasses. But the adults delight in eating plants in the garden such as beans, strawberries, tomatoes, goldenrod, milkweed, peppers, corn, pea and okra. Trees are another popular item, eating a broad range – sassafras, black walnut, cherry, plum, pear, peach, red oak, magnolia, pine, holly and red maple. And some three hundred other species of plants.

When the pretty little iridescent critters go after plants, this is what they leave behind. Just the veins. First discovered in the United States in 1916. Now most states east of the Mississippi are troubled by these beetles, and there is a USDA quarantine to protect the western states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. 

Silvery Checkerspot

Warm sunlight shining through a tiny butterfly wing. Capturing this view of the wings was a challenge. A view that this little critter didn’t want to share. But seeing this, the underside of the wings, makes identification easy. Silvery Checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis) on Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens). In this view the hindwing is pale with a large white crescent at the margin. That is a key to identification.

Another Silvery Checkerspot with that same ventral view of the wing. Again the telltale white crescent at the margin.

Adult Silvery Checkerspots seek nectar at many species of flowers including Black-eyed Susan, Apple Mint, Common Milkweed, Red Clover, and Dogbane.

Females lay eggs often a bit more than one hundred at a time on larval host plant leaves that include asters, coneflowers, and sunflowers. In their early larval stages they stay together consuming those leaves. Though they can totally skeletonize those leaves I won’t panic since I know that they’ll turn into precious little butterflies.

Spicebush Swallowtail

Identifying swallowtail butterflies that are predominately black can be tricky to say the least. Here’s what I go by, and perhaps this will help you too. This is the ventral, or underside, wings up and together side, of a Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus). Take a look at the two rows of orange spots on the hindwing or posterior wing. On the row nearest the bottom of the butterfly are smaller orange spots that are arranged in a “J” shape. I see seven of them. Are you with me? In the second row, further up the hindwing are larger “mushroom cap shaped” orange spots. Counting in the row, going from the left to the right, where there might have been the third orange spot, there is instead a comet shaped blue smudge. Notice that the very top of the comet smudge there is a hint of orange. That hint of orange is not always on every one of this species. The Spicebush Swallowtail is the only butterfly with this arrangement of orange spots that includes the comet design.

Let’s look at the other side of the butterfly now. This is the topside, wings open side, or the dorsal side of the butterfly. Notice that you’re seeing mostly black with a thin dull white (on this particular one there is a hint of orange too) band of dots and “crescent moon” looking dots on the lower side of the wings. There is also a dusting of blue or blue-green mainly on the hindwings including, in the same color an alignment of comet looking shapes streaming toward the top of the butterfly.

There’s another butterfly that looks a bit like the Spicebush Swallowtail on it’s dorsal side, but it’s not a swallowtail. It’s a Red-spotted Purple (Limenitis arthemis). Take note, it doesn’t have the tails like a swallowtail has. It has small red-orange dots on the outer side of the upper wings. There are no dull white dots along the lower edges of the hind wings, though there is a thin edging along the outer sides of the upper wings and also along the outer and bottom edge of the hind wings. Another thing to consider in comparing these two butterflies: the Red-spotted Purple will grow to have a wing-span of perhaps three and a half inches while the Spicebush Swallowtail will have a wing-span of up to four inches.

I hope this information will help you as you’re out there with the butterflies!

Gray-headed Coneflower

July, and the hillsides that are my gardens are brilliant with the happiest of yellow thanks to Gray-headed Coneflower (Ratibida pinnata). Native to central and eastern North America. However in Virginia it is considered an escape from cultivation. A herbaceous perennial plant that can be as tall as four or five feet, and quite narrow. Tall and spindly. But in a mass planting they’re a joy.

Attractive to pollinators, this coneflower is popular with bees, butterflies, wasps, flies, and beetles. AND the occasional Crab Spider.

Come autumn and winter, the seed heads will bring on Goldfinches and other songbirds. A mighty good reason to leave those gardens as they are. A good excuse to let those seed heads be during the winter.

But for now I’m thoroughly enjoying the lift those petals of sunshine yellow bring to my heart.

Home Canned Green Beans

Much going on in the kitchen these days. He’s got a great vegetable garden with tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, asparagus, rhubarb, to name just a few things that bring lovely satisfaction. He didn’t grow these green beans, they’re from our dear friend Pedro Rafael Aponte of Saint Isidore Homestead & Permaculture at the Greene Farmer’s Market. The green beans were yesterday’s project. Today peach pickles are being canned. Color me lucky!