I'm glad you got your PD's and hope they do well for you. Mine are taking their time opening up, a tiny bit more each day. Glad I participated in the thread because we had tons of rain this year, and now I'll remember to water them in drier summers, did give them some this week because the bed isn't mulched and won't be, at least all over, until I get the self seeders established. The reason I got them in the first place was an experienced grower brought one to a late fall rose meeting and won a prize on it, well there wasn't much competition but it deserved it regardless. From where I was sitting, it looked like a wide paint brush with just about one-inch, soft "bristles", no center, wish I'd examined it more closely, very rich purple. I don't see how mine could possibly look like what I thought I saw in hers. And it seemed like a long single stem, like she could get way in and get a nice cut flower. Mine are so bunched on top, that I don't know if you have to prune or something to get a stem, doesn't really matter as whatever makes the flowers the most showy in the garden matters more to me. I asked her what it was, and it took her a long time to get back to me, the name she gave me just about had to be Purple Dome but was a little different, had the words mixed up but did have dome and New England. Before that, I had literally scoured the web looking for an aster like that as I knew it was an aster from the meeting. Now I want some pretty blue ones but so short of space unless I open up more areas or widen the existing ones I can which I don't do on a whim because it means a lot more maintenance.

Congrats on your butterfly season so far. You sure have the jump on us up here. I feel like the snow is just melted. Liz

Hi Kellybird; There is a good article on pearl crescents in NABA's Amerian Butterflies magazine. It is the Summer 2009 issue, volume 17, number 2. The author and his students have raised a lot of pearl crescents. The author states "My rearing records indicate that Pearl Crescents prefer New England and lance-leaved asters (A. novae-angliae and A. lanceolatus), but that they'll readily use crooked-stem aster (A. prenanthoides) as well." Then he goes on to describe the long list of published records for host plants, all in the aster family. He mentions that they wont a plant that has the chemical atractylon in the leaves, of which flat-topped aster does. He mentions that the are probably our most common butterfly. He also says that the eggs match the plant color and are hard to see. He also says that the 1st instars do group together for defense but are very small. They don't spin nests like baltimore checkerspots. The pictures show the caterpillars to be light green with black heads. So, they may be hard to find as well. I highly recommend reading this article. Cheers, Elisabeth Cheers, Elisabeth

Wish Judy would pop in here since she's raised them before. Sandy, they are gorgeous chrysalis's. On what asters are you finding them laying eggs? I only have one and it's not a native (aster tartaricus 'Jindai'). I love it because it's a great nectar plant, with purplish blue flowers. This year it's about 4' tall. It's a very tall one with large, very substantial leaves on it, so I don't know if PC's would lay eggs on it for that reason. I'm pretty sure they would prefer an aster native to Oklahoma. But, the Jindai does attract nectaring butterflies. Last year, the Bordered Patches just loved it. Congrats on a great find! Susan