My plant is 4 ft tall 6 ft wide,and must have hundreds of caterpillars everywhere.
I d caterpillars on Yellow Daturas
Rest of pics,don't know why again they didn't show up.
The bigger ones are some kind of hornworm by the looks of the "horn".
Is that a Datura (night bloomer) or a Four O'Clock?
Night bloomer,no fragrance,but lights up the night with so many blooms.
Huge flowers or small flowers about the size of a quarter in diameter? I think what you have is a Four O'Clock.
No I have yellow daturas,but I also have four oclocks that have a jassmine fragrance,there just not in bloom yet.These blooms on the daturas are the size of silver dollar.
Hornworms do chow down on daturas and the adult moth likes the nectar of four o'clocks. Do hornworms eat 4 o'clocks?
tropic, you mentioned in another post that you have seen many hawk moths. The horn worm is the larvae.
That foliage is definitely not four o'clock foliage. Four o'clock leaves are heart-shaped.
This message was edited Jun 28, 2014 11:30 PM
Well so far had not seen any caterpillars on my 4 O'clocks,but will keep my eyes open to them.
Tropicman
I let my white Datura reseed every year.
Yes the horn worm will be a regular visitor.
Datura is in the nightshade family, like eggplants, peppers and tomatoes (I think).
For me it is a "catch crop" for the horn worms. They seem to go to the Datura before they go to my tomatoes. It is much easier to find them in the Datura.
Box them and mail them to me ... my DH pets will love them !
Save some white seeds for me and I;ll save yellow seeds for you!
drthor and Tropicman---Would either of you like purple datura seeds? If you do, dmail me your address and I will mail you some this fall. I love datura!!
Manduca sexta, Carolina sphinx moth, tobacco worms, (goliath worms) there are 5 instars... the TOBACCO hornworm has 7 straight white lines like cigarettes. Does that resmble your hawk moths?
I smoked for over 30 yrs before I quit,back in 94,I;m sorry don't now what white lines your talking about,but the big black one has 5 lime green lines,hope that is what it is.
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Manduca-sexta there are pics. The tomato hornworm has 8 'V' shaped lines. the tobacco worm has '7' straight lines- you remember tobacco by the cigarette shaped straight line.
Great pics with that link,guess I will try to count the white lines today,but that is definitely the moth.
The one grown caterpillar is the typical green, but remember there are 5 instars when the cat looks like a different kind of hornworm.
As long as they stay off my maters!!!!
They prefer the datura, so as long as its got leaf...
Well looking at the datura this morning,I can see more cats than leaves,they just about swiped it clean.Have more seedlings coming on,but yet have to flower,and they have no cats at all yet,so I'm wonder if the datura has to flower first before they gather,or they just haven't found the plant yet?
Relocate, or grab em for drthor, chuckle, the more you grow, the more there are, so dont feel bad at not keeping them all, or it might be the maters nex year..
Well I couldn't decide what I wanted to do,I like watching them,and they are all gods creatures!!!
I can't figure why the birds aren't eating them!
Do you have any pictures of the bloom?
ALL of Gods creatures great and small are of the naming of man, and under His dominion on earth. The hordes are negligence on mans part to control their environment and maintain a balance we were asked to complete. They are each a part of a food chain that seesaws like a rubber band- and these are meant to be food for the turtles and other creatures whose life cycles also ebb and flow like the native plants to share the earth. Unless your belief is reincarnation, it is your commandment to understand and accept your responsibility - otherwise you are contributing to unbalance and chaos. Find a way to acceptably not contribute to their increase without control if you are worried about physically changing their life pattern in your small part of the universe. Chuckle, the wild holds many more of these plants and creatures yet.
because they are poison from holding the leaf of the Sacred Datura,
Yes I do
Now that is scarey!!!
Let nature take its coarse?? LOL Not nice to fool withMother Nature!!! LOL
fixing it I hope,I rotated the picture but it still showed up this way??
This message was edited Jun 30, 2014 11:03 AM
That is a very unusual plant, do you know the scientific name?
Looks like a sideways sundrops. Oenothera tetragona perhaps?
This message was edited Jun 30, 2014 2:41 PM
I believe that is it from comparing the leaves,flower look pretty much as well.
Well, that clarifies things a lot, except that Oenothera is not Datura, but that is o.k.
I was trying to determine if it is native to Texas but it doesn't seem to be.
I do think that it is native to North America here is a link that I found;
http://www.sunlightgardens.com/plants/1151-Oenothera-tetragona-Highlights-Sundrops.html
Now we need to find out which moth or butterfly uses Oenother as a larval food.
Try Hyles lineata- white lined sphinx, Euproserpinus euterpe-Kern Primrose sphinx moth are 2
Hmm says flowers a month,well it has been flowering a month and looks to be flowering for some time to come,considering it bloomed most of all summer last year.I got these from a trade group off the internet and it just said yellow daturas.
Hyles lineata- white lined sphinx,I think we have a match! Or at least on of the cats the big one for sure.
Thank you Kitt, I guess the cats vary a lot as shown in the pictures
http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Hyles-lineata
So there you have it White Lined Sphinx Moth it is, mystery solved for the plant and the catterpilar.
I see these in Illinois most often..
Yep I'll say and so is the plant!
Wow! they really did a number on your plants! Bless your heart.
If you feel bad about killing some of them you might remove them and put them on other plants that they like.
These are some of the plants they like to eat:
Caterpillar Hosts: A great diversity of plants including willow weed (Epilobium), four o'clock (Mirabilis), apple (Malus), evening primrose (Oenothera), elm (Ulmus), grape (Vitis), tomato (Lycopersicon), purslane (Portulaca), and Fuschia.
After your plants are free of them you can cut the plants back and they will recover with a little water and tender care.
Most plants will recover from caterpillar attack unlike a plant under deer attack. The leaves will look ugly but the stems are still there and ready to put out new leaves to survive and reproduce.
I understand they are pure protein,so being diabetic,I need lots of protein,nah better stick with peanuts!!! LOL