I am a new seed with dreams of becoming a seedling one day. I would like to introduce you all to my garden and some of its visitors here in Colima, Mexico The above is a Zebra Heliconian butterfly taking both nectar and pollen from a Mexican Flame Vine. These butterflies are unusual in that they feed on pollen as well as nectar. The pollen enables the butterfly to synthesize cyanogenic glycosides that make their bodies toxic to predators. Isn't nature grand? The Monarchs many of us are accustomed to seeing have a couple of relatives. This is a Queen Monarch butterfly. There is also a Soldier Monarch. This Queen is getting ready to make a meal of some Tropical Milkweed flower buds, oh yum. Here we have a newly out of the chrysalis, pre-flight Orange-barred Sulphur. She is now ready to take her first flight. Bordered Patches are also frequent visitors. This one is nectaring on a Lantana. The Evans' Skipper butterfly is one of a variety of species of Skippers that visit the garden and i love them all. Gee whiz that's all for now from this new seed. I'm not sure what the Poll is about, i'm not sure what the "garden photo" option is for...i sure hope i didn't make a mess and break a lot of rules. I'd send all of you a big smile but the smily button doesn't seem to be working for me right now :-D Oh my goodness, i see a "preview" option, but i do not see a "submit" option...i guess i'll try "create thread" and hope it doesn't wipe everything out...egads
Stunning close-ups Vitrsna. I'm very excited if this is just a small sample from your garden. Cruel justice, nature is very crafty.
@Frank...do you really think nature is cruel? Butterflies and caterpillars are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain and they have so many predators it is a wonder that any survive. Nature has provided them with some defenses though and this is just one example. I am more inclined to think that Nature is not cruel or benevolent...it just is...and would be more balanced if us humans hadn't messed things up. Then again, when i think of mosquitoes, the word "cruel" does come to mind
I agree @vitrsna , I think I used cruel just off the top off my head. It's easy to give nature a personality but in reality nature has no such thing. Everything is treated equally. It has no friends or enemies. Perhaps just 'frenemies'
Gosh you have so many beautiful butterflies visiting your garden. Sadly, here in Scotland, we're seeing a decline in ours which is very worrying. I just hope that we can all pull together here to make habitats that will welcome them back to our gardens.
Hello Eileen...Butterflies look delicate but i've come to learn they are amazingly resilient and they will change their normal patterns to go where the habitat is...they need host plants in many places and if you give them habitat, they will come. It may take them awhile to find it. But don't be discouraged. A lepidopterist reminded me once "the butterflies have been here for eons and they will be here long after we humans are gone". I am gearing up to see what i can contribute to the plant database. What guide do you use? My reference has been "The Catalogue of Life". If you let me know which one you use, we can be on the same page.
Beautiful photos! I have a hard time getting them to pose for me but once in while they give me a break. As far as information on our database goes, members typically enter info from their own growing experience. If you have to leave some of the sections empty, don't worry about it. Sometimes another member who grows the same plant will add what they can and before I make the page visible to search engines I do some on-line searching and find any additional information needed to fill them in. Thanks for gearing up and jumping into the database, many new plants have been added because of our members and lots of good info also.
Thank you toni, pleased to meet you. I was speaking more taxonomically HA...a new word for the OED. If i knew which reference you used to check the taxonomy of a plant then i would be sure to use that too because the references don't all agree, it might make things easier for everybody but it is not that important because if i use a genus/species you don't agree with then i guess you can just change it and i will note the change. I entered one plant today and everything went very smoothly...no problems at all.
The taxonomy was entered by Frank from his resources when he installed the plant database, he does add a Genus when a member suggests one that isn't already there. If you come up with a plant name that differs from what we have, he is the best one to contact.
Thank you toni. I guess this is a relatively new software for all of you grown up seeds? I looked for a plant (genus/species) in the database yesterday but it has not yet been set up. There is a nifty feature that offers the suggestion to "check the spelling" or "suggest a plant". So i sent my plant suggestion in and will wait to hear when/if it is set-up. Now i am seeing how things work when new plants are being added and i really like it...nice and clean and straightforward with a genus/species review period prior to further activity taking place.
Beautiful photos...in Wisconsin we are still having chilly days with some nice ones thrown in along the way and when I was cleaning my flower bed and along came a sulphur butterfly....it is the earliest I have ever noticed a butterfly. Hopefully he can find a nice warm area to hide this week because we are going back to lows of 28 at night.
Thanks for stopping by Sherry8 and Donna S...ooooh 28 F is chilly. Where i am (with an average annual temp of 78), if the temps drop below 60 F we all start to freeze and it becomes something like a local disaster because no one can find their mittens. I used to call people like me "weather ninnies" and now i am one!
oh....to be at 78 would be heavenly....we are having some cool nights. They said 29 degrees and I am hoping it doesn't drop anymore. I bet you wouldn't like our winters then, at times we can have -30 or more wind chills. I don't like it myself and very dangerous for the pets when they go outdoors. I keep a big box of mittens and hats for when we need them.
I hope some warm weather comes your way soon Sherry8! I hear you about cold winters. I've lived in Alaska, Washington State, Boston and in one of my jobs i had to go to Maine every January for a couple of weeks (thanks boss, i'll never forget you for that!). I remember the cold but i also remember the special sort of frozen beauty that winters can bring. I also remember scraping ice and snow off just about everything, boy do i miss that Do you ever share some of your winter photos here?
