I was visiting my in-laws in Florida and found a GREAT book called Florida's Fabulous Butterflies. It also has a section on some beautiful moths too. It gives details about the common butterflies (and ones less so) and gives much information about their life cycles and what their caterpillars eat. So many beautiful pictures too. It makes me want to live there. So much land is being lost to development too--it's great that you want to help out the butterflies! Purple Hairstreak caterpillars eat Mistletoes. (I am now going through the book.) Malachite caterpillars eat blechum, ruellia, and plantago. White Peacocks eat blechum, ruellia, and lippia. Then you get butterflies familiar to many of us-- Pearl Crescents, Red Admirals, all kinds of swallowtails. Some pictures showed butterflies nectaring on Ixora flowers, Pentas, Spanish needles, I would imagine that planting native plants is the best and easiest way to go. Coontie is a great one to plant since it supports the beautiful Atala butterfly. I saw Zebra Longwings too--they use Passion-flower Vine--the FAQ has the exact species of Passion flower that you can use. (The book talks about how they do external digestion--they take up pollen and let it soak on their curled up proboscis! Fascinating.) Julias also use Passion Flower too. So fun! Keep us posted on what visits your yard.

I have several coontie growing wild in my yard. I would suggest you buy 3 good-sized ones (prob the $10 ones). They are extremely SLOW growers. That one for $1.50 will probably take 10 years to be big enough for a butterfly to use as larval food! Not really, but close. Where I am, there are coonties everywhere, they are a very popular landscape plant now so maybe the population will increase. They are planted in lots of common areas, parks, roadsides, beaches, etc. I love them!

I'm hoping to find anyong with fresh C. renda seeds. I am trying to measure the optimal parameters for germination and need fresh seeds in order to do so. The palm Cyrtostachys renda is als known under the common name of red sealing wax palm. Anyone who has or knows someone who has fresh seeds, I would greatly appeciate correspondence. I will be happy to share the results upon conclusion. Thanks!!!! -Duncan

Not a true butterfly but a fellow Lepidopteran (aka Butterflies, Skippers, and Moths), Long-tailed Skipper was the single most abundant species, clouds of them everywhere. Not the best picture of them as it doesnt show that their lower half is iridescent teal, very pretty. They eat a common weed here called Desmodium incanum. The weed is narrow in growth habit so you can let it grow with your regular flowers without fear of it choking them out. After that it was probably Gulf frits which I have the host plant of. Palamedes and Zebra Longwing were also resident. I get more monarch caterpillars than monarch butterflies since my population seems transitional between resident Florida population and the Eastern US population so they move a lot. Excited for this year because I finally have Winter Cassia (host plant for Sulphurs) and I'm growing fennel&parsley again after not being able to last year. Hoping for more butterflies this year :)