A natural history/meditation from “Monarchs and Milkweeds Almanac” by Ina Warren Turtleheads and Butterflies

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Turtlehead - glabra You got a problem with my stiff upper lip?: Flowers are a two-lipped blossom formed from five fused petals on a dense spike. Colors range from whitish pink to rosy but no noticeable fragrance. The are oblong, smooth, and opposite arrangement on the stem.

TURTLEHEAD If bees are the preferred visitors of Baltimore Checkerspot photo the turtle-head, why do we find the by Alison Hunter, wikipedia.org Baltimore butterfly, that very beautiful, but freaky, creature Be a good-host host: Baltimore (Melitaea phaeton) hovering near? checkerspots feed primarily on - that is, when we find it at all; for turtlehead foliage but in its where it is present, it swarms, and absence, they will feed on plantains keeps away from other localities and beardtongue penstemons. altogether. On the under side of Photo courtesy of NPS the leaves we shall often see Eggs: Reddish in color when first http://www.nps.gov/plants/ patches of its crimson eggs. Later laid; later becoming beige prior to pubs/Chesapeake//1359.htm the caterpillars use the plant as hatching. their main, if not exclusive, food store. They are the innocent Larvae: Early instar caterpillars Other common names: Balmony, culprits which nine times out of ten build silky nests and feed on Snake head; turtle bloom; shell mutilate the foliage. turtlehead leaves until later in the flower; Salt-rheum – Mrs. Neltje Blanchan, 1900 summer. Before a killing frost, they exit the plant to spend the winter My Chelone has first name: burrowed in litter or Caterpillar Café: underground. They return to active Chelone Baltimore Checkerspot foliage feeding in the spring to rhymes with (Euphydryas phaeton) mature and form their chrysalis. …and baloney describes the myth Maryland’s State Insect associated with her in Greek Pupae: For two weeks, it is one of mythology. Because she refused to You’ll have to “fen” for yourself: nature’s jewels - an inch long attend the social event of the chrysalis of creamy white with season: the marriage of Zeus to Both checkerspot butterflies and orange and black markings. Hera, they turned her into a turtlehead have been in It resembles a concoction from . severe decline in MD and DC areas. Charlie’s Chocolate Factory! We are family: Scrophulariaceae This is primarily due to the Adult: The Baltimore Checkerspot Relatives: lousewort, mullein, destruction of wet woods and butterfly is said to be named for the monkey flower; butter and eggs; meadows for construction of 17th-century American colonist foxglove; Indian paint brush; owl’s townhouses. George Calvert, the first Lord clover, princess tree, Veronica Baltimore whose crest was orange and black. It is mostly black with The hostess with the most-est: orange and creamy-white spots Perennial in nature, there is a new arranged as a checkered pattern, cultivar named ‘Hot Lips’! :-) hence its name. There was sign of forced entry: Who could forget the delightful Because of the flower's design, border of tiny orangey half moons turtlehead relies upon large bees below a series of creamy crescent for cross-pollination. It takes a moons! strong stroke for any winged one to clockwise: Egg-larva-pupa-adult force its way into the tubular flower, never mind forcing aside Drawing: www.marylandzoo.org No larvae? No butterflies. the stamen to get at the nectar. No way, no how.

For range map, see: http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=CHGL2