Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Top Butterfly attracting flowers

Though i would submit a separate post on how to attract butterflies specially in lahore, right now i would focus on only which plants i have found attractive for butterflies.

1- First, butterflies are cold blooded insects so they love sunshine. They tend to prefer area which receives maximum sunshine.
2- Choose flowers rich in nectar. Have you wondered why there is not a lot of butterflies seen on Roses? nectar!!!!! Nectar rich flowers are usually single petal flowers having large seeds visible in the center. See the example of Dahlia below:

single dahlia flower with butterflyGood for butterflies, Nectar Rich










double dahlia flowerNot butterfly friendly, no nectar









Daisy is another common example. Others good flowers include following:
  • scabiosa (pincushion flower)
  • Lantana(specially blue flowered)
  • buddleia (butterfly bush, white color variety survives in plains while purple one in hills)
  • Asclepias curassavica(tropical milkweed)
  • lemon/orange/tangerine
  • Kniphofia(red hot pocker)
  • Allium
  • Cosmos
  • Single petal dahlia
  • Hibiscus
And last but not least Senecio confusus vine. In this march i had more than 200 blooms on this vine and every single day it was surrounded by butterflies.
senecio confusus mexican flame vine





Butterfly on my senecio vine





3-Choose flowers with sweet fragrance. One example is Murraya (Marwa, marwi), i have seen hundreds of butterflies on one single murraya tree near my home.

Note that butterflies usually appear in lahore from February-October. Also, Butterflies cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86 degrees.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Swallotail butterfly on cosmos flower

I love butterflies and i cannot resist capturing them sipping from flowers. This is why i like butterfly attracting flowers. During my visit to Punjab University trip to Khanaspur trip, i captured these butterflies sipping from flowers in small botanical garden of Punjab University Khanaspur, NWFP.




































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