forma pluvialis

[Guy_VdP at t-online.de]

While on a run today, after some months of constant rain, I noticed
that several of the female Pieris napi around here (Heidelberg area,
Germany) showed really dark markings. I noticed that before, in my home
country Belgium, in a likewise summer (that actually did not deserve
that name).
In Atalanta (German magazine), females like this have been described as
being an ecological form, in the article specimens from a valley in the
Black Forest (SW of Germany) showed very dark markings. Usually, in
such valleys, the humidity is much higher than in open areas - I know
of comparable circonstances in the nearby Odenwald. Sometimes you can
find specimens that have the discal spots interconnected, in a way
resembling Pieris bryoniae, though in most cases lacking the
bryoniae-streak. The ground-colour is always white. 
The interesting fact is that I saw these in the vally of the Rhine, an
open area where wind usually dries everything really quickly and
creates a kind of steppe-climate (plains-climate ?), some 5 km away
from the sheltering hills of the Bergstrasse and Odenwald.
The wind did not stand a chance this year - some of the guys on this
list seem to have a good relationship with the guys upstairs - could
you not ask them to close the pipes so that we could still get a little
bit of summer ? ;-)

Guy.

 
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