I think there should be a book in your future! You write so beautifully.
I have grown what I thought were "moonflowers" for a couple of years and just learned that they are highly toxic datura plants. They are gorgeous, do bloom at night, and are very fragrant then and a little bit in the AM when they are beginning to fade. I noticed a hornworm on a stem and learned when I posted a picture on the Asheville Plant People Facebook group that it would develop into a sphinx moth that pollinates the datura. It stayed on the same stem and the next day I saw two small cocoons on it indicating that it had been attacked by a braconid wasp, which is a friend tomato wasps, since those hornworms will die from the invasion. Nature's battles are fascinating to learn about.
For the past 3 or 4 weeks we've watched a dozen pipevine swallowtail caterpillars on our Dutchman's Pipe vine. This afternoon we found one of the largest 8 feet away from the vine crawling in some small but dense wild blueberry bushes. It stopped on a low stem, almost hidden. Tomorrow we'll look there for a chrysalis and 10 days later for a butterfly. In the rock wall a few yards away there are some brown anole lizards, its natural predator. But our swallowtail has survived all these weeks, so we have great hopes.
I think there should be a book in your future! You write so beautifully.
I have grown what I thought were "moonflowers" for a couple of years and just learned that they are highly toxic datura plants. They are gorgeous, do bloom at night, and are very fragrant then and a little bit in the AM when they are beginning to fade. I noticed a hornworm on a stem and learned when I posted a picture on the Asheville Plant People Facebook group that it would develop into a sphinx moth that pollinates the datura. It stayed on the same stem and the next day I saw two small cocoons on it indicating that it had been attacked by a braconid wasp, which is a friend tomato wasps, since those hornworms will die from the invasion. Nature's battles are fascinating to learn about.
For the past 3 or 4 weeks we've watched a dozen pipevine swallowtail caterpillars on our Dutchman's Pipe vine. This afternoon we found one of the largest 8 feet away from the vine crawling in some small but dense wild blueberry bushes. It stopped on a low stem, almost hidden. Tomorrow we'll look there for a chrysalis and 10 days later for a butterfly. In the rock wall a few yards away there are some brown anole lizards, its natural predator. But our swallowtail has survived all these weeks, so we have great hopes.
That's exciting to witness. No chrysalises around here! Insect population is way down with many species.