Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia
Promoting environmentally sound gardening practices for over 35 years!
Continuing our #PollinatorWeek celebration, today’s post describes different tactics lepidopterans employ to survive and includes a new video of a gray hairstreak using his hindwing tails to imitate his antennae.
The shape, color, structure and odor of a flower usually determine the type of pollinators it attracts. A flower requires a pollinator that will visit it regularly and successfully transfer pollen in and/or between it and other flowers of its species to ensure fruit and seed production. For the service of pollination, the flower provides a reward: usually food such as nectar and/or pollen. Thus plants and their pollinators enjoy a mutualistic relationship.
One of the joys of summer is to watch butterflies flaunt their shapes and colors by flitting, floating and fluttering from flower to flower. Attracted to clustered or composite blooms that are bright, red, purple, blue, and yellow, they pick up and transport pollen on their legs and wings.
