Butterflies & Native Plants-Special Home Improvement Section
Jean Lamb-Rowan County Master Gardener
September 11, 2002

Native trees and shrubs have great value in the landscape, especially in terms of hardiness and resistance to drought. They bring great beauty and shade to our summer gardens and brilliant color to our fall landscape. But no where is their value more evident than in the role of native trees and shrubs in the support of all forms of wildlife.

I became especially aware of the role of native vegetation in the life cycle of butterflies this summer. My butterfly bush, Buddleia davidii, was covered with as many as 30 butterflies at one time. Some of them were not familiar to me and when trying to identify the ones I did not know, I realized that all of them had spent the early stages of their life on other native trees and shrubs and only as adults were gathering nectar at the non-native butterfly bush.

On a warm day in August, I had as many as twenty Tiger Swallowtails at one time. Before they metamorphosed into yellow and black striped adults they had spent their life as caterpillars in the poplar, wild cherry, and beech trees that surround my yard.

The Spicebush Swallowtail is a large black butterfly. The male has a greenish tint to the hind wings while the female has a bluish hue. The favorite food of the larvae is the spicebush, an insignificant under story shrub which is common in the woods of the piedmont. It is frequently destroyed because its value is not obvious to people, but it is vital to Spicebush Swallowtails.

Another butterfly easily confused with the Spicebush Swallowtail is the Red-Spotted Purple. The black wings have a halo of iridescent blues and the under wings are spotted with red and orange dots. The larvae of the Red-Spotted Purple feed on native trees such as willows, poplars, and hawthorns.

A butterfly that was unfamiliar to me visited my butterfly bush. After some research, I identified the large orange butterfly with several black spots on its wings as a Gulf Fritillary. Its only larval food is the passionflower vine, or may pop, a common weedy vine native to piedmont North Carolina.

This summer I did not see a Zebra Swallowtail. This white and black beauty has larvae that only feed on the leaves of the Paw-Paw. If the butterfly has disappeared from my area, I have to assume that something has happened to the Paw-Paw tree that fed last year's Zebra Swallowtail larvae and there is one less beautiful creature to visit my garden.

Native trees and shrubs are where adult butterflies lay their eggs, hungry caterpillars feed, and then metamorphose into adults. Animals and birds depend on the food and shelter of native plants and shrubs, but none are more closely tied to the survival of specific plants than butterflies.

For more information on this topic, read "Landscaping with Native Trees" by Guy Sternberg and Jim Wilson and "The Family Butterfly Book" by Rick Mikula. Both are available at the Rowan Public Library.