Tithonia rotundifolia. Native to Florida, Louisiana, Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. NOT native to Virginia but it is a well behaved annual which I try to plant every year. I thoroughly adore it for the many butterflies, including Monarchs, and the hummingbirds that the dazzling orange flowers attract. A bright orange magnet in the garden.
Sweetspire (Itea virginica) in the rain. A shrub native to the southeast United States. Bees and butterflies love the blooms.
And in the autumn Sweetspire gets my nomination for best color of the season. A great alternative to the exotic invasive Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus).
At the very top of my favorites for wintertime shrubs — Winterberry (Ilex verticillata). A deciduous species of Holly. Native to eastern North America, and is hardy in USDA zones 3 through 9. Winterberry is a dioecious bush that gets tiny inconspicuous flowers in June and July that attract bees and butterflies and is the host plant for one butterfly in particular, Henry’s Elfin Butterfly. Birds love the brilliant crimson berries which cling to their leafless branches in winter. I love them too, for their elegant beauty.
Continuing on a thread that I started yesterday. These nuts are Bitternut Hickory. All Hickory nuts are edible but with this one, as the name implies, is one that you might want to skip. There are much better nuts in the woods.
Some moths have the Hickory tree as their host plant. One that is often seen in the fall is the Hickory Tussock Moth Caterpillar. Those long hairs are used as protection against predators and may irritate the skin of sensitive individuals. Use caution.
Another moth caterpillar that uses the Hickory tree as their host plant is an incredibly large one, the Hickory Horned Devil. Growing to 5.5 inches to 6 inches in length, it’s the caterpillar of the Regal Moth. Despite its size and amazing look the caterpillar is totally harmless with no poisonous spines.
The Regal Moth, the adult of the Hickory Horned Devil is of course large as well and can fill the space of a hand, with a wingspan of 4 to 6 inches. There are also butterflies that use Hickory trees as their host plants including Hickory Hairstreak and Banded Hairstreak.
Right now as autumn blazes through those Hickories are waiting to be discovered. Get out and look for the amazing golden glow, and compound leaf. Could be a Hickory.
White Wood Aster (Eurybia divaricata), is an herbaceous perennial plant native to eastern North America. It’s encountered mainly in the Appalachian Mountains but can be found scattered in other places in the east.
Stems that are not perfectly straight, take on a reddish/purplish hue as the season wears on. Heart-shaped leaves with serrated edges. Plants can be densely covered with blooms late summer through autumn.
White Wood Aster flowers are composites, with about 10 snowy white (or sometimes a pale purple) ray florets arranged around brilliant yellow disc florets much like a daisy. Those bright yellow disc florets change color as they age turning a ruddy purple.
The flowers with a width of one inch are a favorite of bees and butterflies. Speaking of butterflies, that butterfly in the first picture? It’s an American Lady Butterfly. Birds and small mammals eat the seeds. If not eaten, the seeds are equipped with cream colored bristles and wisps of hair which allow the wind to take the seeds up and away.
Aromatic Asters (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) are visited by bees, butterflies and skippers, seeking nectar and in the case of the bees, pollen. The caterpillars of moths and of Silvery Checkerspot Butterflies eat the foliage. This Crab Spider is hanging around hoping to catch some dinner, just waiting for the perfect insect to come along.
I’ve got some Aromatic Aster blooming like crazy right now. A stunning show is put on by this perennial plant.
Aromatic Asters are native to northeastern and central United States. I’m looking forward to dividing my plant in the early spring of next year. The more the merrier.
American Persimmons (Diospyros virginiana). They seem to be everywhere up here now. The fruit growing into a small orb with a soft green color. Dropping from their branches as they ripen.
Those little fruits are tempting bears, if any bears are around here now. It’s something that bears really enjoy eating if one can tell by examining bear scat. You’ll find Persimmon seeds if you look.
Color warming from that soft green to yellow-orange. Sweetening as they ripen.
Once they’re ripe the Persimmons are a warm orange color and will begin dropping to the ground. Not only tempting bears but also butterflies that are fond of slurping on rotting fruit. Butterflies such as Question Marks, Commas, Red Admirals and Painted Ladies.
The bark of American Persimmon has large blocky patches which to me resembles an enlarged version of Flowering Dogwood bark.
As the common name implies, American Persimmon is native to much of the eastern United States from southern New England, throughout the southeastern United States, and west to Kansas and Texas. It’s in the Ebony family and has a heartwood that is almost black.
With a wingspan of 1.75 to 2.5 inches the Silver-spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) is the largest of the skippers. But being the largest of the skippers doesn’t make it LARGE compared to some moths and butterflies.
The Silver-spotted Skipper is certainly the skipper that I see most often as I check out the trails here on my mountain and enjoy my gardens. As my Dad would say, they seem to be ubiquitous! As adults they use their long tongues or proboscices to slurp up the nectar of blue, red, pink, and purple flowers, and minerals of mud, and even animal feces.
The primary host plant of Silver-spotter Skippers is the Black Locust Tree. Others are plants in the legume (Fabaceae) family.
The young caterpillar creates a “tent” folded in a leaf of its host plant where it spends days, venturing out at night to feed on leaves of the host plant. The host plant, often a Black Locust or Bush Clover, or False Indigo. Older caterpillars will move on to create a larger “tent” for themselves using more than one leaf.
Got a spot in the woods? If you do, I hope you have this plant somewhere close by. An amazing color and a beautiful flower. Ironweed. Quite possibly New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis), but then again it might be Upland Ironweed (Vernonia glauca), or Tall Ironweed (Vernonia gigantea). These three species all reside in Virginia and to add to the confusion they hybridize. So I won’t go out on the proverbial limb and try to identify which species my photos contain. They are Ironweed!
This photo above is an Ironweed, lakeside at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, in Richmond, Virginia. In less formal settings you’ll find them in ditches, edges of ponds, moist meadows and stream banks. But they are also quite happy on drier mountain slopes that get full or partial shade, as my gardens can attest. If you have Black Walnut trees around, Ironweed is tolerant of the juglone that those trees present as a challenge to gardeners.
In looking very closely at the blooms of Ironweed, I immediately think of itty bitty bighorn sheep, looking out through the intense magenta petals of the disk flowers. Those curlycue, white, “sheepsheads” that I see are actually the split stigmas of each individual flower.
A host plant of the American Lady Butterfly, Ironweed also attracts many species of bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. I love having these flowers here in my gardens, both as gifts to me from dear family, and volunteers.
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!
