Highway vegetation and butterfly spreads

[Michael Gochfeld]

John Calhoun's account of Wild Indigo Duskywing and Crown Vetch is 
certainly applicable to central NJ where highway plantings of Crown 
Vetch are continuing (although the number of new roads has of course 
declined). 

There is also the suspicion that the rapid southward spread of 
Coenonympha tullia which reached northwestern NJ only two years ago, and 
is "plunging" southward has been abetted by highway corridors. 

Dotted Skippers (Hesperia attalus) are generally considered rare and 
local.  We recently found a colony associated with Weeping Love Grass 
(Aragrostis) an exotic species which the NJ Department of Transportation 
and the Forestry Division have been planting extensively along highways. 
This hitherto unreported (and still putative) host (we observed egg 
laying) is spreading and may allow the Dotted skipper to do likewise. 

Michael Gochfeld