Captain Video

Patrick Foley patfoley at csus.edu
Thu Jun 21 23:47:58 EDT 2001


Michael,

You ask why butterflies do not visit members of the rose family as much as
do bees.Rosaceae have lots of pollen-bearing anthers which surely attract
bees. Nectar may not pool up as much in the flowers of most Rosaceous
plants (which include cherries, strawberries, blackberries and Chamise
(Adenostoma fasciculatum, a major component of California chaparral)! So
the competition for nectar may be strongly influenced by the attraction of
the pollen. Ultimately, rosaceous plants may have evolved to be less
attractive to butterflies if they are 1) less useful than the
pollen-gathering bees and 2) largely parasitic on open flowers since they
don't have to stick their faces into the anthers to get at nectar.

This was largely speculative, if anyone has more specific information, I
will be semi-delighted to be told I'm wrong.

But this issue does raise the intriguing question,

Who will stand up for the rights of parasitic butterflies?

Sadly not able in my argumentative family to turn the machines off for
three hours, but glad to avoid, despite all the evidence, the whiff of
ecoterrorism, and the condemnations of the wise,

Patrick Foley
patfoley at csus.edu

Michael Gochfeld wrote:

> Captain Video, Fred, wow, I'm impressed. Extra credit just for
> remembering that far back.
>
> How about Sergeant Preston?
>
> Anyway, Paul will be relieved that only about 60% of the houses on our
> block appeared to participate in the blackout.
>
> I got a lot done. I could have cheated and worked on the laptop, but
> since that took electricity to charge, it didn't seem fair somehow. But
> I did attack large quantities of multiflora rose, cleaning out part of
> the butterfly garden that had gone "bush" as they say in New Zealand.
>
> Why is it that many plants in the Rosaceae are hosts for butterfly
> larvae but very few have flowers that attract nectaring butterflies.
> Bees yes.
>
> Mike Gochfeld
>
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>    For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:
>
>    http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl
>


 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:

   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl 
 


More information about the Leps-l mailing list