"About passionvine...do you know if it spreads so easily like that up north?" Most varieties of passionvine do go crazy, but the cats make quick work of it once the gulf frits find it! Last year, I had dozens of cats at any one time, and most of the summer, they'd eaten every tiny speck green from the vine (they'd sort of crawl around pathetically looking for food... I gave a couple hundred cats over a period of a few months to a friend who grows a ton of passionvine so she could feed them). My vine has recovered and is growing wonderfully right now, nice and lush, but I've seen frits in my yard already, so it's just a matter of time before they devour it again. So, in short, if you're growing passionvine for butterfly gardening, you can never have enough, and I consider it a plus that it grows so well. The first butterflies I ever raised (I'm in Houston, too) were swallowtails--I went to harvest some parsley one day, and discovered cats on it (that's how I got into butterfly gardening, actually--it was a happy accident). Now I grow a bunch of fennel for them, which they prefer over the parsley (they won't touch the parsley until the fennel is gone), and the fennel grows really well in our area and is very easy to find at all the garden centers, so try that, too. I'm also growing frog fruit and blue pea vines this year, and both of those host plants are growing very nicely right now, but no cats yet on either. And, of course, milkweed, but no matter how much I have it's never enough. Good luck!

There are several websites that list butterfly larval hosts. A good one is www.butterfliesandmoths.org You can do a species search or narrow it down to your state or county and it will show you what leps can be found. That site lists a descriptive identification, life history, flight periods, wing span, caterpillars hosts, adult food, habitat and range. Another website is my local NABA (North American Butterfly Association) website. http://www.naba.org/chapters/nabast/index.html Click on the gardening link then the 'nectar and foodplants' link. From there you will see a .pdf list of butterfly plants and caterpillar food plants. Both are excellent reference sources that are geared for the lower Rio Grande Valley but we get about 320 species here most are the same as from other states so it will be a useful guide to print and keep handy. (I xeroxed and reduced the page size of this list and keep a copy of it inside my Kaufamn Focus Guide - Butterflies of North America) - That is also one of the best butterfly guide books on the market. Another good sight with photos and great larval lists is the Dallas Butterfly site. www.dallasbutterflies.com Click on the 'butterfly gardening' link on that one and you can see a list of Host Plants listed by Butterfly, Host Plants listed by Common Plant Name, Host Plants listed by Botanical Name and Nectar Plants listed by Botanical Name. Excellent printable resources indeed!!! Hope those help you out :o) ~ Cat

The Janais Patch is the same as the Crimson Patch...I saw a cluster of cats on Flame Acanthus at a local butterfly park a couple of years ago. Have heard Variegated Frits use Flax...but I've only seen them on Green Violet (hybanthus verticillatum). Mexican Frits use Damiana (Hierba del venado) out here. Not sure about Cotton for the Painted Lady...considering this area produces gobs of cotton...you'd then think we'd have gobs of PL around cotton fields. We don't...then again, they use pesticides :o( I also have doubts about Texas Bluebonnet, Texas Mountain Laurle and Mesquite. This area is full of those and the butterflies that are supposed to use those are larval hosts are found in small numbers. Maybe they do use them...but I've never seen a caterpillar on them nor anything oviposting on them. Perhaps they get eaten by birds, bugs, spiders etc. Mountain Laurels often get attacked by webworms out here. On another note...I recently read that Blue Curls (phacelia congesta) is a larval host for the Painted Lady. I noticed several patches of that in bloom at the ranch when I was there last weekend. I will have to check those plants for eggs/cats. The Lower Rio Grande Valley has an extensive larval host list too. Considering we get about 300 butterfly species it comes in handy. I keep a reduced copy in my butterfly book and another in my car so I can refer to it when I'm out in the field. Either way it's good to know those are larval hosts. Will keep those in mind whenever I come across them out in the field. Just never know what you'll find :o) ~ Cat Here is a link that might be useful: South Texas NABA Caterpillar Food list

Hi there! Here are a couple of resources. One is from NABA.org, and the other is from www.butterfliesandmoths.org. You'll need to copy and paste the below link because I don't know how to get there to be two links... http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/map?x=231&y=70&_fc=1 Have fun! Here is a link that might be useful: NABA's list for SE MI