My butterfly garden is located right outside my front door and goes along the pathway to the driveway and then extends the length of the house. I have said this multiple times, it was a great placement, as I can watch the butterflies from my couch. The best, though, is catepillars love the little nook by my front door to create its chrysalis.
This time a monarch butterfly chrysalis.
My Bahama Cassia tree is the “it” place for chrysalis.
Today while searching the tree for caterpillars, I spotted yet another chrysalis, this time a gulf fritillary. The foliage of the tree must be a great hiding place for them to safely emerge.
One of the gulf fritillary butterfly’s host plants is the maypop passionvine. This plant I stopped buying as it shoots up everywhere in the garden and has been quite invasive.
According to the Flordia Native Plant Society, it has a “stoloniferous rhizome
root system,” which allows new plants to grow from suckers all over the garden.
To be honest, I do not remember where the original plant was planted in the garden. Now I have it growing in probably more than a dozen places, all over my extensive garden space. It has grown through dense mulch I just put down, too.
For the most part, I have put up stakes where it is growing and just let it be, while in other places I pull the plant. It definitely provides an abundance of food for the gulf fritillary caterpillars.
The polydamas swallowtail chrysalis, I think, is very unique. The color often times depends on where they create it, as they can either be green, or brown.
The first one is well hidden in my Bahama cassia tree, resembling the color of a leaf. The last few photos are residing in my butterfly house and are brown, similar to the color of the branch.
It will be interesting to see how long before the butterflies emerge. The last batch overwintered, which was fascinating because I live in Southwest Florida where the temps usually do not turn too extreme.
This morning I spent quite a few hours in the garden with the company of the orange barred sulphur butterfly.
I have made it to the far section of the garden where my candlestick cassia plant is located, a favorite of the sulphur, with my stone pathway.
She kept fluttering in, flying high and low, close and far away from me. I lost count of how many eggs this sulphur left behind on its host plant.
The plant is already loaded with caterpillars of every instar.
