Thistle While You Work In Your Garden

Thistles are an iconic Scottish symbol and great butterfly attractor. There is a also an American cousin that grows from Maine to Florida in meadows, fields, and pastures. I love to see them growing by the highway and don't think of these purple spiny flowers as weeds, although I'm sure many farmers do. Hawthorn Hill has more information on this beautiful Florida native.

Pineland Scrub Blossoms In Summer

Beauty in the white sands of a pine flatwoods and scrub ecosystem may be hard to imagine. Unknowing visitors will see the dead foliage, broken snags, and thick, impenetrable vegetation as weedy, unkempt, and dangerous, but native wildlife and naturalists appreciate the value of Florida's oldest ecosystem's resources to provide food, cover, and nesting during the summertime.

These dry, upland habitats were once Florida's ancient coasts but now are home for endemic species, both wildlife and vegetation that thrive in harsh environments with seasonal rainfall (both drought and flooding), nutrient deficiencies, and frequent fires.

My photographs of native plants and wildflowers were shot in a Seminole County ten-acre residential community that leaves all but the homesite undeveloped. Click on the photographs for larger viewing. The various pictures show berries for bears, birds, deer, gopher tortoises, and raccoons, and host plants for butterflies and birds.

Tarflower,Bejaria racemosa, Saw palmetto, Serenoa repens, Sparkleberry, Vacciunium arboreum. Mother Nature's Smorgasbord for Florida wildlife.

Blackroot, Pterocaulon pycnostachyum, provides food for wild hogs.

Coastalplain St. Johns-wort, Hypericum brachyphyllum, host plant for insect pollinators, like bees, butterflies, and moths. These flowers are found in bogs, lakefronts, coasts, and ephermeral ponds.

Frogfruit, Phyla nodiflora, Lippia nodiflora, can also be seen growing in urban cement sidewalk cracks, residential lawns, and near water. Host plant for the White Peacock Butterfly, Anartia jatrophae, Common Buckeye Butterfly, Junonia coenia, Phaon Crescent Butterfly, Phyciodes phaon.

Rusty Lyonia, Lyonia ferruginea, popular with deer and insects.

Saw palmetto, Serenoa repens, provides food for migrating mammals and birds, and is the host plant for the Palmetto Skipper.

Shiny blueberry, Vaccinium myrsinites, food resource for mammals, including humans, birds.

Tarflower, Bejaria racemosa, nectar plant for pollinators.

Six foot tall Tarflower, Bejaria racemosa

Puzzled About Zebra Longwings?

Florida State Symbols

Zebra Longwing - UF/IFAS

Butterfly Gardening In Florida -UF/IFAS

Tales From The Butterfly Garden - Lepidoptera Curious

Florida Butterfly Host Plants

NSiS Zebra Longwing Nectar Plants  

Blue Butterflies "In Your Backyard"

On the radio show, last week I had a great call from JJJ's Ornamental Nursery, a local nursery about a flower that looked like a butterfly. A blue butterfly that attracts butterflies! Decide for yourself.

I immediately thought of a large bush with blue flowers called Clerodendrum ugandense. They are large shrubs that do well in full sunlight or partial sunlight with rich soils. Also called Oxford bushes, this Kenyan native plant is zoned for 10-11, but will recover from any freezing in zones 8-9. Pruning the bush is recommended as it blooms on new growth.

You can find the beautiful Butterfly bushes at:

• JJJ's Nursery(352) 429-0539, 18421 County Road 33 Groveland, FL.
• Eldon Tropicals, Ocala, FL.
• Top Tropicals

Speaking of blue butterflies, the Miami Blue butterfly is still on Florida's endangered species list. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission is now requesting information on the biological status of 61 species for rulings in November. Please check out the species listed and if you have any information that you feel is beneficial, make your voice known!

The FWC is specifically requesting information on:

• population size and trends;
• distribution and range;
• threats to the species;
• published population viability models; and
• specific aspects of the species' life history that may influence the range-wide and Florida-specific status of the species.

Information and data should be sent to:

Mail:
Biological Status Reviews
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
620 South Meridian Street
Mail Station 2A
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600

E-mail:
Imperiled@MyFWC.com

Responses will be accepted until 5 p.m., Nov. 1, 2010.