Butterflies & Flowers

Backyards, prairies, and wetlands are covered with blooms at this time of year.  Many plants depend on butterflies to visit flowers, collect pollen, and move it to another flower to assist in plant  reproduction.  Plants offer nectar as a sweet treat to attract butterfly species, who come for a sip and carry away some of the plant’s pollen.  As butterflies move from plant to plant, the pollen is picked up or deposited at each stop.

Butterflies can only consume liquids, sipping through long, hollow tongues.  They generally prefer a mixture of different nectar sources.  Plants with many blooms or clustered flowers are preferred by all  pollinators because less energy is needed going from one bloom to the next over very short distances.

Female butterflies search for specific plants to lay their eggs on.  These are called host plants, and they  provide food for the caterpillars.  Each butterfly species requires specific host plants, and caterpillars will starve before eating any others.

During the heat of summer, there are lots of butterfly species to watch for.  In northern Illinois, watch for monarch, black swallowtail, tiger swallowtail, white cabbage, red admiral, question mark, common buckeye, queen, and viceroy. 

An easy way to observe many different species is to find areas rich with flowers providing nectar for the butterflies to feed on.  Flowers in full bloom in our area include coneflowers, milkweeds, and sunflowers.  Many of these plants provide seeds later in the year and throughout the winter for backyard birds. 

Watch for these flowers and their visitors, or consider planting a variety of flowers in your backyard to attract butterflies to your own habitats.

From upper to lower, left to right: Black swallowtail larva, Butterfly weed, Common buckeye butterfly, Common milkweed, Gray-headed coneflower, Queen Anne’s lace, Queen butterfly, Question mark butterfly, White clover, Spicebush swallowtail butterfly

All pictures by DonArnold, 2022 except: Question mark, Polygonia interrogationis, by Joe Finney, Jul 2013……… Common buckeye, Junonia coenia, by Jim Flannery, Jul 2015……… Queen butterfly, Danaus gilippus, by Roy Niswanger, Oct 2008