A female monarch butterfly stopping by for a meal of nectar from the blue porterweed.
Nectar stop
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Tag Archives: blue porterweed
Favorite
The blue porterweed is a favorite plant in the garden for the butterflies. It is an excellent plant to add to a butterfly garden as the nectar is sought out by a variety of butterfly species.
This plant has tripled in size and makes a great ground cover, and does really well in full sun. It flowers year round and has coarsely toothed leaves. The stems with the flowers grow pretty long, which gives the garden a great layered look with bursts of green and blue.
Brilliant orange
My butterfly garden was full of a brilliant orange this morning as a few gulf fritillary butterflies fluttered in feeding on the nectar flowers.
The nectar from the flowers holds both proteins and other chemicals, which help the butterfly both receive energy, or pheromones for males. When the butterfly is fluttering by a nectar plant it will look at the shape, color, fragrance and test the flower by using its antennae, palpi, tarsi (feet) and its proboscis, which all have sensory receptors.
I read in “Florida Butterfly Gardening” that the nectar may only be secreted during certain hours of the day, which may be why the butterflies are abundant during the morning hours.
Hungry
This butterfly sure had an appetite and was quite acrobatic as it sipped nectar from the garden yesterday. Research revealed that it is of the hairstreak species, mallow scrub hairstreak.
This is the first time I have seen it visit our garden. It loved the nectar from the porterweed flower the most.
Love of the porterweed
The gulf fritillary sure made me work for a good photo this morning as it fluttered from flower to flower. The porterweed sure is a favorite of this orange beauty.
