1 of 11 Blooming Feb7, 2006. Mexican Flame Vine with normal color.
Butterflys, flowers, and cat
2 of 11. Most of the Flame Vine is a darker Red this winter. They have a delightful fragerance.
3 of 11. The Fairy Dusters are still going strong. All the Butterflies hit on this one, but it runs out of nectar.
4 of 11. The Cape Honeysuckle is doing better than ever.
5 of 11. The Queen is having lunch.
6 of 11. Still eating.
7 of 11. A rare, for me, visitor.
8 of 11. Can anyone ID this one for me? It looks to be a modified swallowtail. A very fast mover.
9 of 11. Another pic, showing the metalic sheen. This one has red dots on the underside of the wing.
10 of 11. We have many Monarchs now. In the cooler weather they almost always land and keep their wings open, to collect more heat.
11 of 11. Febcat. These guys keep the milkweed eaten down to a nub all the time. I counted about 25 in a small patch this afternoon.
I am jealous!
There were twice as many today, a real swarm. Too bad you live in the frozen North, John. Now explane Dew Point to me, since it almosts always dews here, fogs a lot, and the dewpoint changes every few minutes. Just curious.
Thanks, trois
Trois,
The black swallowtail butterfly looks like a Pipevine Swallowtail (battus philenor)
~ Cat
Thanks for the ID. I thought it might be, but the size is off a bit. Cooler weather does affect size though. This one is about 1.75 inches.
Wonderful pics, trois. Love your vines! And your BFs!
Thank you, tabasco.
trois
Definitely a Pipevine, has only white markings on the topside.
I'm jealous of that still blooming MFV. It takes so long for them to get going and start blooming here. They don't have much time to be big and bloom before they die. :( I asked someone on another thread (where?) about the seeds on this vine. Have you gotten any? Can you tell me where they are? I think maybe ours end up dying too early for them to produce any.
I love that red Fairy Duster! I've never seen that before. I'll have to look that up.
We just collected the seeds from the MFV and scattered them allmover the other places we have. I will look for more. You are only one zone North of us. When you get more of these plants, do a heavy mulch of the ground around them to prevent the ground from freezing. They will then recover and come back. We are lucky this year as so many are doing so well.
The Fairy Duster is a fairly small plant. It gets a lot of visits from butterflys.
trois
But where were the seeds? Do they make pods? Are they on the flowers themselves? We never could see anything that looked like a seed. I have a lot of mulch on everything but the last 2 vines have never come back.
Does it ever freeze where you are?
...gotta research that Fairy Duster! too cute
The ground never freezes. The flower pods do like sunflowers, and become seed pods. They have fly away seeds, lots of fluff on top.
Lots of rain today, didn't get to hunt for any.
I've got one fairy duster. Once it froze almost to the ground. Hard freeze coming this Sunday, so hope it's okay.
Thanks Trois, I'll pass that along to my group of friends. I've had plenty of flowers on the vine and never deadheaded them, so you'd think at some point I would have seen seeds or at least maybe a plant from one. Don't worry about seeds for me. Thanks anyway tho! I'm going to a plant sale in April that will have some. I've just been curious.
They are hard to spot, just looking like a dried flower pod. I'll try to get a photo today.
I looked that Fairy Duster up in the PlantFiles. It's a member of the Mimosa family, so no wonder I like it. So is this a small bush or a tree?
So far, it is a small bush. I don't know how big they can get, very big would be nice.
Fairy Duster gets to 3 feet tall, but it's wider than that. Not especially shrubby looking, however.