Pipevine Dreams

One of my favorite local butterflies is the black-winged Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor). The first photo is one I took of a butterfly that we raised a few years ago. Strikingly dramatic, from the top you see the unusual black wings fringed with large white spots. The wings on the butterfly's underside are more colorful -- I like Wikipedia's description: "The underside of the hind wing has seven orange submarginal spots surrounded by iridescent blue." You can see the orange and iridescent blue clearly in my second photograph.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that the Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly's host plant (in our area, anyway) is the Pipevine plant, also known as Dutchman's Pipe (Aristolochia). Check out the next two photos to understand the name.

We've been growing pipevine in a few spots in our garden for several years, but haven't yet been lucky enough to attract a butterfly to lay eggs on any of them. The vine in the front garden put out a profusion of pipes last week. My third photo shows one string of them - there are many more pipes zigzagging up the tree that the vine is twined around.  

The plants need to get really large to attract the female to lay eggs. We have raised caterpillars from eggs that we rescued, and they ate the pipevine leaves so voraciously that we had to forage widely to find enough for them to eat!

The last image is an "artsy" piece I made from my photograph of a Pipevine Swallowtail on a buddleia flower.

So this year we're having pipevine dreams that a butterfly will visit our Dutchman's Pipe and lay some eggs. Have you seen any of these exotic-looking butterflies in your garden?  

You can see this post on my blog by clicking here. Or visit my blog to see my other posts about nature, photography, art, and much more!