Saturday, August 3, 2013

Black Swallowtail on mountain mint

Looking rather like a festively adorned lepidopteran Darth Vader, a Black Swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes, sucks nectar from the flowers of Virginia Mountain Mint, Pycnanthemum virginianum. Mountain mints attract an awesome assemblage of native pollinators, and I would highly recommend them for your yardscape.

This butterfly was photographed this morning at Daughmer Savanna, and I'll hope to share some more photos and words about that foray when time permits.
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2 comments:

KaHolly said...

What a beauty!!

August 3, 2013 at 5:28 PM
Brent Kryda said...

I was able to finally make it there back in June on my way down to the 6k+ peaks of the southern Appalachians. I included it as a stop heading down US 23 to show a friend that our smoother lands beyond the mountains were a lot more diverse and amazing than they have since been plowed over to be. He could not get over how big the Burs were. No mountain mint then in bloom, but the swallowtails were all over the spiderwort.

August 4, 2013 at 8:18 PM

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