Making Butterfly Habitat using Native and Other Things By Gordon Pratt

Habitats • Dry washes • North facing slopes • South facing slopes • Wet areas such as springs and creeks • Canyons • Sagebrush • Hilltops

Work together in Neighborhoods • Get together with your neighbors and discuss a neighborhood butterfly garden • One yard can specialize in shade food plants • Another can largely food plants adapted to dry habitats • Another can specialize in milkweeds • Another can specialize in nectar plants • Another can specialize in wild buckwheats • If enough yards get involved, most food plants of your local butterflies can be planted in the neighborhood

Good Nectar Plants for Butterflies • Try to find plants that have long bloom periods • Try to find plants that bloom at seasons of the year that others do not • Buckwheats • Sunflower family • tickseed (Leptosyne californica [ californica]) • Desert bush sunflower (Encelia farinosa) • Butterweeds (Senecio spp.) • Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia, non-native) • Hoary Aster ( canescens [ canescens]) • In OC: Fleabane daisies (Erigeron spp.), Asters (Symphyotrichum spp.), Sand asters (Corethrogyne spp.) • Salt heliotrope (Heliotropium curassavicum) • Western sea-purslane (Sesuvium verrucosum) - a native iceplant

Not So Good Nectar Plants for Butterflies • Some plants, even though they may look beautiful, are not that attractive to general • These plants may have specialized insects that pollinate them • Prickly poppy (Argemone munita) - bees, beetles • Mariposa lilies (Calochortus spp.) - bees, beetles • Beardtongues (Penstemon spp., Keckiella spp.) - bees, birds

Most Butterflies require specific larval food plants • Some butterfly larvae feed on the leaves of specific plants • Other butterfly larvae feed only on the flowers and seeds of specific plants • Quino checkerspot ( editha quino) • Plantains (Plantago spp.) • Snapdragons (Antirrhinum spp.) • Chinese houses (Collinsia heterophylla) • Mallows such as desert mallow ( ambigua) • (Vanessa annabella) • Checkered skippers ( albescens, P. communis) Page 1 of 2 • Turpentine broom (Thamnosma ) • Desert swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes coloro) • Parish’s tauschia () • Indra swallowtail (Papilio indra) - not in or near OC • Southern tauschia () • Western (anise) swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon) - OC • Paintbrushes (Castillija spp.) • Castillija foliolosa - Leanira checkerspot (Thessalia leanira [ leanira]) - in OC, high elevations • Castillija plagiotoma - Ehrlich’s checkerspot (Euphydryas ehrlichi) - not in or near OC • Nettles (Urtica holosericea) • Milbert’s tortoiseshell (Aglais milberti) • Red admiral (Vanessa atalanta rubria) • Commas (Polygonia spp.) • Lupines (Lupinus spp.) • Blues (family Lycaenidae)

Deciding what to plant in your yard for butterflies • Read books on local butterflies to decide which will occur in your area • Generally there are maps of the ranges of butterflies & some indication of the elevations at which they occur • Identify the larval food plants for the butterflies in your area and plant ones that you think are appropriate • Plant flowering plants that flower at different times of year

Ants • Some lycaenid butterfly larvae require specific ants

Mudpuddling • Wet areas along the edges of ponds and creeks • Moist areas along drainages

Hilltops and drainages for mate searching • Some butterflies require hilltops to mate, while others search for mates along drainages • Male Quino Checkerspot butterflies will sit on an open piece of ground at a hilltop waiting for a female • Male Pale Swallowtail butterflies will perch on a bush at a hilltop waiting for a female • Male Western Tiger Swallowtail butterflies

Overnight Roosting Sites • Many butterflies find roosting sites when it starts to get dark before a rain and before sunset

Diapause and Pupation Sites • Quino Checkerspot have been found to diapause around the base of California buckwheat • El Segundo Blue larvae burrow into soft sand to pupate • Some chrysalises (& some larvae) will diapause for many years so these sites can be extremely important

Peter Bryant’s Natural History of OC - http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu BAMONA - http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org Butterflies of America - http://butterfliesofamerica.com Bug Guide - search for photos by name - http://bugguide.net Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation - http://www.xerces.org Xerces Calif plant list - http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CaliforniaPlantList_web.pdf Tree of Life Nursery: Bob Allen’s Butterfly Gardening - http://tinyurl.com/houp9cw Tree of Life Nursery: Natives for Butterflies - http://tinyurl.com/z7v28xj

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