My Very Own Butterfly Magnet

I was very fortunate to end up with a butterfly magnet. Unlike some of the other larval host plants I mentioned, this one goes strong for months every year. It's a native passionflower; not like the showy ones you'd buy at a nursery. The flowers on this one are half that size and very pale lavender, so pale you can't really see them from the street.

[Picture: caterpillars of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly. Notice the chewed leaves.]
But the butterflies can see and smell the leaves, and the plant gives them just what they want and need. This is the larval host plant for Gulf Fritillary butterflies, a butterfly that's just about as big and colorful as a Monarch. They seem to like these modest little passionflowers better than the big showy ones. Several of those grow in the neighborhood, yet I’ve never seen as many caterpillars on them as on my native vines.

An interesting thing about these caterpillars is their coloration. They are red with black spikes which should indicate poison and scare predators away. But often wrens aren't fooled. One year, I noticed a wren calling from the front yard several days in a row. Then for several more days, the vines were visited by various wren families. Kept the caterpillars a little bit in check.

There's the rub. If you get too many caterpillars, it stresses the plant. Even with plenty of foliage, it will cease flowering. And those little buggers go right for those fresh tasty new buds. The mother even lays the eggs on the ends of stems, and the caterpillars target them. Easier to eat, apparently. Really makes it a balancing act to keep the plant healthy and allow the caterpillars to go on with life. But somehow I've managed.