Dragon Trees in Portugal and Gibraltar

Dragon Tree growing at the Lisbon Botanical Gardens. Photo by Steve Andrews

Dragon trees come from Tenerife and the Canary Islands, and it is said they are also found in Cape Verde, Madeira and parts of Morocco, so I wasn't expecting to find them in Portugal or Gibraltar. However, they do grow in these places and grow very well there, as I was to discover.

Dragon trees can be seen in a botanical garden in the centre of Lisbon in Portugal and also in parks and gardens in Gibraltar. The dragon trees in these locations were just as healthy and well-formed as most of their counterparts in Tenerife, though admittedly not as big as some of the very old trees found in the Canary Islands.

Dragon Tree in Lisbon. Photo by Steve Andrews

The dragon tree (Dracaena draco) is a weird plant, not really a tree, although it grows to tree-like proportions. It has spiky leaves that grow in rosettes and bears small white perfumed flowers that turn into orange-red berries as they ripen.

Dragon Tree berries. Photo by Steve Andrews

Dragon trees get their name because if cut they bleed a red sap known as Dragon’s Blood, and also because aerial roots that hang downward can resemble a dragon’s beard.

The dragon tree produces a mushroom-shaped head of branches that fan outwards. The many branches in these dragon tree crowns are said to be like the hundred heads of a dragon that the hero Hercules killed.

Drago Milenario. Photo by Steve Andrews 

Dragon trees can grow for a very long time and the Drago Milenario that grows in Icod de los Vinos in Tenerife is said to be 1,000-years-old, though estimates put it more like somewhere between 250 and 650 years in age.

Whatever its age, the Drago Milenario is a majestic specimen and is the oldest dragon tree in the world. It has become a plant symbol of Tenerife and many tourists flock to see it in the Parque del Drago it stands in.

Dragon trees are very rare in the wild but are extensively cultivated in subtropical gardens and parks. They take a very long time to grow and only have a single trunk until the first time they flower when the tree produces side shoots from its crown. It can take 10 years before a dragon tree is big enough to flower and then branch.

Branching Dragon Tree. Photo by Steve Andrews

The dragon tree has been classed as a medicinal herb because its sap is said to be good for strengthening the gums.

The Guanches, who were the people who lived in Tenerife before the Spanish Conquest made shields out of the trunk and held the dragon tree in great reverence.

Dragon tree berries have one or two seeds and can be germinated easily enough though they may take as much as a month before sprouting. 

Edible wild plants found by the sea – Fennel

Fennel flowers. Photo by Steve Andrews

The fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a common medicinal and culinary herb often found growing wild by the sea. It is a tall plant with umbels of yellowish flowers and produces finely divided feathery foliage that is very aromatic and smells like anise.

Fennel is native to the Mediterranean, parts of Europe and the UK but is found in many other parts of the world, including America, Canada and Australia. It is a perennial plant and likes to grow in grassy areas and on waste-ground near the sea and is often to be found when foraging in coastal areas. It is very common in the north of Tenerife in the Canary Islands and can be found on the other islands.

Fennel is included and recommended in Richard Mabey’s Food For Free, which is an excellent book on edible plants that can be found while foraging and that has been republished over and over and is now in its fortieth year after its first publication.

The aniseed aroma that fennel produces is a very good way to identify this herb which is in the Apiaceae or parsley family, a group of plants that also has several very poisonous species such as the hemlock.

Fennel, from Koehler's Medicinal-plants (1887) in Public Domain

Fennel seeds are good in curries and other spicy dishes and can be used to make fennel tea. In Spanish the herb is known as hinojo and teabags are commonly sold in grocery stores and supermarkets under this name.

Fresh fennel leaves can be eaten in salad, used as a garnish or made into sauces which are very good with oily fish. Fennel is actually very good for indigestion so using it in your cooking makes a lot of sense.

There is a variety of fennel known as Florence fennel or finnochio that has a bulb at the base and this is popular as a vegetable to be eaten raw or cooked.

In herbal medicine fennel is recommended for digestive problems and is said to improve the vision. It is also said to be an aid to slimming.

Fennel can be grown easily in the herb garden and will produce large clumps. There is a bronze fennel too with attractively coloured foliage.

Edible wild plants found by the sea – Rock Samphire

Rock Samphire growing at Swanbridge, South Wales. Photo by Steve Andrews

The rock samphire, samphire or sea fennel is a commonly found edible plant that grows in rocks at the top of beaches, growing amongst the shingle and on cliffs. It is found in the UK and along coasts of parts of Europe and the Mediterranean area, as well as on the Canary Islands.

Known to botanists as Crithmum maritimum, the rock samphire is in the Apiaceae or parsley family. It has succulent divided leaves and umbels of greenish-yellow flowers.  It is aromatic if bruised and has quite a strong smell and taste. The herbalist Nicholas Culpeper described rock samphire as having a “pleasant, hot and spicy taste.”

Richard Mabey gives some recipes for rock samphire in his classic book for foragers entitled Food For Free.  This book has proved so popular that it has been republished over and over and is now in its fortieth year. 

Rock Samphire in Portugal Photo by Steve Andrews

Rock samphire can be found all year round and can be eaten sparingly raw in salads, pickled in vinegar or cooked as a green vegetable. It was once so popular that it was mentioned by Shakespeare who describing the dangerous practice of gathering it from high on cliffs, wrote, "Half-way down, Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!”  It was collected too in the Isle of Wight and shipped to London in vats of seawater to keep it fresh.

These days it is illegal to remove plants of samphire from their natural habitat.  Nevertheless the rock samphire is an interesting edible plant to look out for when walking by the sea.

Red Admiral Butterflies

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta (in Public Domain)

The Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) is a very well known butterfly that is often seen in gardens and parks in the UK, especially in autumn when it is one of the last flying insects to be seen before the winter begins.

It has very conspicuous red and black wings and white spots on the wing-tips. The underside of the wings is mainly mottled and provides camouflage when the wings are folded.

The Red Admiral is a migrant butterfly that arrives in the UK and northern Europe each year and is believed to hibernate in small numbers in Britain too. In late summer and autumn it can often be found feeding on rotting fruit such as apples, pears and plums that have fallen to the ground in gardens and orchards. Red Admiral adults can often be seen feeding on Buddleia or the Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii) in late summer. With its spectacular colouration the Red Admiral is one of the most popular and commonly sighted British butterflies.

The caterpillar of the Red Admiral is mostly found on Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica) but sometimes will also be discovered eating other plants in the Urticacae including Pellitory of the Wall (Parietaria officinalis) and the Small Nettle (U. urens), as well as Hops (Humulus lupulus) in the Cannabaceae. The Stinging Nettle is a familiar sight and often forms large patches alongside fields, on river and railway banks, and on waste ground and Pellitory of the Wall grows, as its name suggests, in the walls of old and ruined buildings.

The male Red Admiral butterflies tend to be smaller than the females but otherwise look identical. Females can be seen flying over food-plants and stopping to lay eggs but otherwise they are mainly encountered feeding on flowers or fruit or simply basking or flying in the sunshine.

Canary Red Admiral (Vanessa vulcania)

In Tenerife and the Canary Islands there is a very similar species of Red Admiral though it is smaller and has slightly different wing patterns. The red bands have black markings breaking them up. The Canary Red Admiral (V. vulcania) tends to be mainly seen in spring and lives in the cooler areas of the islands where there is more vegetation. 

Canary Red Admiral resting

This species is also found living in Madeira. It used to be referred to as Vulcania indica the Indian Red Admiral but has been declared as a separate species to this butterfly. Like the Red Admiral its caterpillars feed on nettles and plants in the Urticaceae.

Both species of Red Admiral butterfly are very pretty creatures from the Nymphalidae family and not easily mistaken for any other species. 

Copyright © 2013 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

Rare Canary Islands Bencomia shrub grows to the size of trees in Cuevas Negras

Bencomia caudata Photo by David Parkes

Many years ago the Findhorn village in Scotland made the news because of the gigantic plants and vegetables that grew there, and this was believed to have happened due to the magical assistance of nature spirits. Findhorn was soon to become a thriving New Age community and still is to this day. Now a rare shrub known as Bencomia caudata has been found growing to the size of small trees here in Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

According to author and botanist David Bramwell in his book Wild Flowers of the CanaryIslands, this particular species of Bencomia only reaches 2 m in height and he describes it as a “small shrub.” However, whilst out walking with friends I discovered a number of specimens of this rare plant that had developed into small trees and reached 4 m or more. Some of these had proper branches and trunks as well. They are of the beaten track and hidden away in the garden of an abandoned house in the Cuevas Negras area above Los Silos.

Bencomia caudata tree. Photo by David Parkes

I contacted Bramwell and he has confirmed that the small trees are B. caudata but a lot bigger than usual. It is thought that the fertile soil where they are growing has caused their fantastic increase in size. The Cuevas Negras ravine they are in is sheltered and receives plenty of water. Most of the vegetation growing there is very tall, green and luxuriant. There are very high plants of some sort of Cabbage in the garden as well and my friend Holly van Heffernan was photographed by one of these to show just how tall they are.

Holly van Heffernan with a Cuevas Negras cabbage. Photo by Steve Andrews

The Bencomia genus of shrubs is actually in the Rosacae or Rose family but only an experienced botanist would be likely to realise this because the shrubs do not look anything like the popular flower we all know so well. They are evergreens and have attractive pinnate leaves. The flowers are carried in inflorescences that later on turn into tightly packed globular fruits. The flowers are either male or female and the plants are dioecious.

Palo de Sangre the Stick of Blood. Photo by Steve Andrews 

The leaf-form of the Bencomia species bears a resemblance to those of the Stick of Blood or “Palo de Sangre” (Marcetella moquiniana) that is another uncommon shrub found in Tenerife. It gets its name from having the upper parts of its stems covered in bright red hairs. This shrub is in the Rose family too. It grows on cliffs, slopes and in ravines in the wild but is frequently cultivated in parks and gardens for its ornamental value.

There are another three species of Bencomia that are endemics of the Canary Islands.  B.exstipulata grows in various locations in the highlands of Mt Teide, B. sphaerocarpa is surving in small populations on the forest cliffs of El Hierro, and B. brachystachya is a shrub that is only found in Gran Canaria. All of the Bencomias are very rare plants and protected species.

Copyright © 2013 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

How do spiders build their webs?

Garden Spider in web

So how do spiders do it?

I have been studying nature all my life and am still totally amazed by spiders. I am astounded by what they do. Their webs are a miracle I am sure you will agree?

There is a Garden Spider female with a web hanging over my balcony and I have wondered how she created it. The balcony is around 14 ft wide, and I know that having measured it, but somehow the spider has lines to both walls and another to the ceiling, as well as one to the balcony railings.

She is suspended in space with at least 6 ft between the one wall and the centre of her web. There is something like a 40 ft drop below into a car-park.

To weave a web

Apparently the spider puts out a line of silk that may be carried by the breeze to a nearby wall, trunk, twig, leaf or other solid surface. As soon as it hits the spider senses this and runs down it as well as creating another thread to make the connection stronger.

I have never seen this myself whilst observing spiders in the wild but have seen it captured on film in a presentation by David Attenborough so I know this is how it is done. It has been filmed in time-lapse and speeded up so we can view the process.

The spider creates other main lines below and to the side of the web and then starts filling in the rest of it around the central hub point. The spider uses as many as six different types of thread to create its work and there can be as much as 60 metres of thread in a single web. This is how the orb-weavers go about it and they make fantastic webs with intricate webbing and precision.

An orb-weaver can complete making a web within an hour after it has created the basic lines to hold it in place. Some orb-weavers make a new web every night.

Orb-web spiders make their webs under the cover of darkness for obvious reasons. They are a lot less likely to be seen moving about then, whereas in the daytime a hungry bird might spot them.

I love to see spider webs when they are covered in dew-drops. They look really magical glistening in the sunlight of an early morning, as if they weren't already magical enough!

In the UK there are lots of Garden Spiders about in late summer and early autumn. The females can be recognised by their larger size. They have a white cross on the back of their bodies too.

There are other types of webs including tunnel webs that do not appear so complex but the system of spinning a web is pretty miraculous I think even if some sorts of webs do not look as attractive to the human eye. And then there are spider types such as the Hunting Spiders, Crab Spiders and Wolf Spiders that do not build webs but rely on their hunting skills to catch their prey.

Tent-web spiders

In Tenerife where I am living we have a very common spider which is one of the tent-web spiders. Cyrtophora citricola tends to live in communities of males and females. They spin large sheet-like webs that they drape over foliage and hence the name "tent-web."

Tent-web Spider

The females spin cocoons in which they lay their eggs and these hang in the middle of their webs where they can stand guard over them.

This particular species, which is also found in the other Canary Islands and in Africa, tends to spin its webs in clumps of Prickly Pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-barbarica) and in the massive spiky leaves of the Century Plant (Agave americana). Living like this presumably offers the spiders some protection from predators and humans too! Many people are scared of spiders and kill them but I think they are amazing little animals!

Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

Grow your own Cotton

Cotton flower

We all wear cotton clothes and we know about cotton fields, and there are even old songs that talk about picking a "bale of cotton," but what a lot of people don't realise is that the plant the fibre comes from has an attractive flower and leaves and makes a very unusual ornamental plant to grow as a houseplant or in your garden.

Cotton species
Species of the Cotton Plant grown and harvested commercially are Gossypium hirsutum (90% of world production), G. barbadense (8%), G. arboreum and G. herbaceum and they are all in the Mallow family or Malvaceae.

Cotton described

The Cotton Plant is a shrub or bush and can grow to as high as 3 metres, depending on the species and the growing conditions. Cotton species are subtropical or tropical plants but can be grown indoors as houseplants in colder climates.

Cotton comes originally from Africa, India and the Americas. The plants need a fairly good soil and plenty of water to grow well. Cotton plants start off with two fairly large seed-leaves and then start to develop the proper leaves, which are palmate in form. The plants can grow fast and will eventually produce pretty flowers in shades of yellow or pale orange and these are followed by the bolls, which contain hard seeds covered in the fluffy cotton fibre.

Parts of the Cotton plant

Pests

Cotton plants can be attacked by several insect pests including thrips, whiteflies and caterpillars. There is a species of moth caterpillar known as the "bollworm." Surely the best way of dealing with pests is the old-fashioned way or by using biological controls?

Monsanto

Genetically modified cotton has been produced by the bioengineering global company Monsanto. This form is known as BT Cotton and contains a pesticide from a gene in its artificially manipulated DNA.

It is successful in combating some insect pests but not all and in India has caused terrible problems for farmers there who bought the seeds from Monsanto. Faced with failed crops, a need for irrigation, herbicides, and buying new seed from the company, many farmers have found themselves unable to afford the costs and have actually committed suicide. This is yet another tragedy brought to the world by this powerful global company that has also given us Agent Orange, a dangerous defoliant used in the Vietnam War, and Aspartame, the toxic artificial sweetener that is found in a disturbing amount of food and drink products today.

Organic Cotton
There has also been a move towards growing organically-produced cotton and plenty of such products on sale. Many people prefer to have cotton clothes as a natural product as opposed to artificial fibres but they would also prefer a natural product free of pesticides and herbicide residues.

Cotton growing in a  flower border

Tenerife
I first came upon a Cotton Plant growing as a bush in a shrub border here on Tenerife. I picked a boll off the plant and found that the seeds it contained germinated very easily. I have also seen plants of cotton in a row on a shrub border in the village I live in where I assume they have been planted by a member of the local community.

Cotton bolls

If you have enough land and live in a warm enough part of the world you could grow your own field of cotton but I grow my Cotton Plants on the balcony. Cotton makes a very unusual and attractive plant to grow and I can certainly recommend it.

Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

Hot stuff – growing Capsicum Peppers

Green Bell Pepper

Many people enjoy eating hot spicy dishes such as curries, and also like growing their own plants, and this is where the many species of Peppers (Capsicum) are ideal for both purposes. Chilli Peppers and Sweet Peppers are very easy to grow and you can use their fruits too.

There are so many to choose from. There are the very hot Chilli, Cherry and Cayenne Peppers, and many varieties and cultivars available within these groups, and there are the much larger Bell or Sweet Peppers that are not hot to taste and are eaten in many ways.

In fact there are over 1,000 cultivars grown in the world with a very wide range of colours, shapes and degree of pungency. Most cultivated Peppers are either of the C. annuum var. annuum or C. frutescens species.

Pepper groups

Peppers can loosely be included in five separate groups. There is the Cerasiforme Group (Cherry Peppers), with small and very hot fruit, the Conoides Group (Cone Peppers) with erect and cone-shaped fruit, the Fasiculatum Group (Red Cone Peppers) with thin red and very hot fruit, the Grossum Group (Bell Peppers, Sweet Peppers and Pimientos), with large sweet fruit that are green and ripen to red or yellow, and finally the Longum Group (Cayenne and Chilli Peppers) with drooping, very hot-tasting fruit that are the source of Chilli Powder, Cayenne Pepper and Tabasco Sauce. There are books about Peppers such as The Whole Chile Pepper Book that comes with over 180 hot and spicy recipes using them.

Growing Peppers

The Peppers are all annuals or short-lived perennials and grow easily from seed. They are all frost-tender so need to be grown in greenhouses or indoors in temperate zones and countries like the UK. They grow fine outdoors in subtropical and tropical areas of the world as long as they have enough water.

I have personally grown them well in pots on a balcony in Tenerife and in my house when I lived in Britain.  My good friend Chris Fowler, who lives in Cardiff, became so involved in his hobby of growing Peppers that he has been successfully cultivating many different varieties, and set up a small business selling his produce. He has posted lots of photos of his Peppers at his Facebook site.

The plants do best in well-drained nutrient-rich soil and germinate easily enough. I have grown Peppers from seeds I have taken from fruit I have bought or been given but you can, of course, buy named varieties in packets of seed commercially available. Most Peppers form bushy plants with small white flowers that turn into green fruit that change colour as they ripen and grow larger.

Cherry Peppers

History of Capsicum Peppers

Capsicums were first introduced to Europe and the Western world after being brough from Mexico following Columbus’s voyage of 1942. A doctor who had sailed with him and noticed how the Native Americans used the fruit for flavouring food and as medicines, such as toothache remedies and pain relievers. It is said that the Portuguese then took Peppers to Africa and India.

Medicinal uses and properties

The bitter alkaloid Capsaicin has been established as a pain-killer.  Peppers are also antibacterial and contain vitamins A and C, as well as minerals. Hot varieties increase blood flow, stimulate sweating and are good for the digestion. Capsaicin can be made into an analgesic cream used to treat rheumatism, arthritis and aching joints.

Culinary uses

Sweet Peppers can be eaten raw in salads or cooked as vegetables. They can be stuffed or added as ingredients to other mixed dishes such as sauces for pasta, for pizzas and in soups and stews. Hot Chilli and other very pungent Peppers are added to pickles and chutneys, as well as providing their hot spiciness for Indian, Thai, Mexican and other cuisines of the world.

Chilli Pepper

And finally...

From this short introduction to Capsicum Peppers I am sure you will see many reasons why they make excellent plants to grow, but a word of warning: the hot Peppers can cause painful inflammation if they are brought into contact with mucous membranes. So if you have been handling Chilli Peppers do not touch your eyes or other sensitive parts of the body or you will regret not washing your hands first!


Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

Is the "Chemtrail era" about to end? JazzRoc thinks so!

Contrails above cloud as seen from a plane

Like me, you probably wish we could return to the days gone by with blue skies and white fluffy clouds and none of this white hazy sky that is caused by the trails planes leave behind? You have probably heard about the conspiracy theory that claims that persistent contrails are “chemtrails” and you may even believe this. Millions do!

These trails are said by chemtrail-believers to contain all manner of toxic substances, and many think they are part of some Secret Government plot to cull the human population. It is said that the elements Barium and Aluminium/Aluminum are in these trails. Well, I have just had some wonderful news from my good friend Tony Duncan aka JazzRoc, who says that the ongoing debate and all the hoopla associated with it will be coming to an end. Tony explains it this way: 

"Finally, the "chemtrail era" is about to END. The next generation of air traffic control equipment will be IN EVERY PLANE. This means that aircraft will exchange information about the HUMID AIR (which is the cause of persistent trails in the first place) in order to be able to ROUTE THEMSELVES AROUND IT. And that'll be the end of that.”


William Thomas and Clifford Carnicom
JazzRoc is a scientist and former aviation engineer and knows what he is talking about. Several years back He got involved in a big way on the Internet because he was posting on many websites and forums debunking the term chemtrail. It was him that got me to see how crazy this belief system was and is. Yes, I admit that I used to believe in the chemtrail conspiracy. I was accepting what I had read in NEXUS magazine and elsewhere and believing what people like William Thomas and Clifford Carnicom were saying. 


In recent times a film by G. Edward Griffin entitled What in the World are They Spraying? has been doing the rounds and adding to the worldwide fear and paranoia about chemtrails and a Secret Government. But I can understand why people accept this propaganda. I believed my own eyes that were showing me the skies messed up by trails that lasted hours and that crisscrossed and ended up spreading into a whitish haze.

Sun Halos
I had also witnessed sun halos in the white cloud mess the skies often became. This was a new atmospheric phenomenon I had not seen before. I blamed it on chemtrails. But then JazzRoc asked me if I knew what made up the halos around the Moon. Of course, I did. I knew they were created by water vapour that can form minute ice crystals. It was a moment of realisation. I joined the dots and saw that halos in the day must be caused the same way. Not by particles of Barium or Aluminum but by ice crystals, by frozen water vapour. This was what was in the trails, which were contrails all along, and not chemtrails.

Sun Halo

HubPages and Myspace
I announced that I had changed my belief about this matter at HubPages and at Myspace and was met with a barrage of chemtrail-believers and conspiracy theorists trying to reconvert me to this belief or making ridiculous claims about me saying I had been “got at,” “drugged,” or “hypnotised.”  In the meantime, JazzRoc had been deleted from YouTube and there were all manner of crazy claims being circulated about him saying he worked for the CIA, was a "Secret Government employee" and a "disinformation agent".  At that time he was working part-time as a community gardener in the Tenerife resort of El Médano. I knew the truth but the ‘true-believers’ persisted in their delusions not just about Tony and myself but also about the contrails they call chemtrails.

Bard of Ely in 2007 with Stop Chemtrails t-shirt

No more Chemtrails
And so if JazzRoc is right, after many years of arguing about this matter with chemtrail-believers who hold onto their belief as avidly as an ardent member of a cult or religion, I will be really delighted if this is true and the day will dawn that we will no longer be seeing our skies messed up by the air traffic that causes the trails and cirrus cloud to form. Imagine that - no contrails, no chemtrails, no more arguments! Chemtrails will have been stopped! 

Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

The Death’s-head Hawk Moth is a very strange insect

Death's Head Hawk Moth

You may have seen the Death’s-head Hawk Moth (Acherontia atropos) in Silence of the Lambs. Because of its scary appearance and reputation this very large and very strange insect was included in publicity for this very successful thriller starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster

.

You see, this massive hawk moth has the spooky image of a skull on its thorax, and its horizontally banded body reminds us of the ribs of a human skeleton. Add to this the fact that the Death’s-head hawk Moth can squeak when alarmed and that its huge caterpillar can make clicking sounds, and it is not surprising that there are many superstitions surrounding this insect.

These moths are migrants from southern Europe and North Africa and sometimes arrive in the UK, where although it’s a very rarely seen species, it sometimes breeds and lays its eggs on potato plants. The Death’s Head Hawk Moth also lives in Tenerife and on the other Canary Islands.

 Death’s Head Hawk Moth caterpillars can also eat plants in the Solanaceae or nightshade family and often feed on Datura species such as the poisonous Thornapple (Datura stramonium). Plants in the Verbena family, including the subtropical shrub Lantana (Lantana crocea), can also be eaten, as can the Tulip Tree (Spathodea campanulata) and other shrubs in the Bignoniaceae.

Death's Head Hawk Moth caterpillar (yellow version)

The finger-length caterpillars come in three different colour variations. There is a brown form that matches the colouring of twigs and woody stems, a yellow caterpillar with purplish stripes on its sides and a green larva with striped sides too. If disturbed the click their mandibles.

Death's Head Hawk Moth caterpillar (brown type)

The caterpillars pupate in soil and leaf litter and hatch out after a few weeks in warm conditions. In Britain it is too cold in the winter months for the pupae to survive and so the moth is not resident in the UK. 

Pupa of the Death's Head Hawk Moth

The adult moths only have short proboscises so cannot feed from many types of flowers and instead they take tree sap and also steal honey from beehives. It is said that the moth’s scent deters the bees from attaching them when the insects are carrying out a raid. The hawk moths squeak when feeding on honey too. Perhaps they make this noise because they are enjoying their stolen food or maybe to scare off the bees? 

You can find out much more about hawk moths in the excellent book Hawk Moths of the World.


Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

Butterfly gardening means the right flowers and food plants too

Monarch butterflies reared on a balcony

Everyone loves to see pretty butterflies in their gardens and flying around wherever they live or travel to but sadly very many species are dropping in numbers fast.  Habitat destruction, pesticides and herbicides, as well as Climate Change are all taking their toll.

Fortunately many people who want to help with the conservation of nature and to do their bit, are getting interested in gardening for butterflies. This is a wonderful idea because these beautiful insects need all the help they can get.

A lot of people think that having plenty of colourful flowers and flowering trees and shrubs like the Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii) will help, and this is true, up to a point. You see, whilst it is vitally important to provide nectar-bearing flowers for the adult butterflies to get their food from, we also need to provide food plants for the mother butterflies to lay their eggs on. If this is done it can work very well because the butterflies that have been attracted to your garden because of the flowers, will stick around to lay their eggs if they can see the right food plants also growing there.

If the right plants are grown in sufficient quantities you may well end up with an ongoing breeding population of various types of butterfly in your own garden. In the UK, Europe, North America and other countries where Stinging Nettles (Urtica dioica) grow, having a clump of this plant growing in your garden is a wonderful help to the butterflies because many species have caterpillars that feed on it.  For example, the Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae), Peacock (Inachis io) and Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) butterflies all use the Stinging Nettle as a food plant.

Red Admiral at rest

In countries where the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) lives these magnificent insect can be attracted and encouraged to breed by simply planting any of the many species of Asclepias that can be easily obtained by searching on the Internet, or maybe from a garden centre near where you live.  Here in Tenerife the Scarlet Milkweed or Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is the species that is grown in gardens and parks here.  The easiest way to get seeds is to buy them on Amazon. If you don’t have garden even just a balcony or terrace will do, if you cultivate the plant in pots. I managed to have as many as 50 adult butterflies emerge in the same week after the caterpillars had fed on Milkweed I had grown on my balcony.

Monarch caterpillars

If you have a wild part of your garden then make sure you leave plenty of grass to grow in it. You may be surprised to know that there are very many of the Brown butterfly family (Satyrinae), such as the Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina) and the Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus), that come into this category.  The Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) is another butterfly in this group with a caterpillar that feeds on grasses.

Blue butterflies often like grassy lawns that are allowed to have wild flowers growing in them. Birds-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) is the food plant for some species of these pretty little butterflies. 

Here in Tenerife the African Grass Blue (Zizeeria knysna) has actually benefited from the lawns that people have in gardens and for hotels and other resort developments.  This is because these lawns often have the weed White Clover (Trifolium repens) growing amongst the grass and their caterpillars can feed on this plant as well as on Oxalis species.

White Clover patch that supports a colony of African Grass Blue butterflies

And of course it is not just butterflies that need the right food plants for their caterpillars because moths too need specific plants for their larvae to feed on.  If you really want to help the butterflies and moths in your area it is a good idea to get a good insect book that will tell you what each species needs and then to cultivate these plants in your garden.

Good luck with your efforts at butterfly gardening and I hope you end up seeing far more of these beautiful creatures where you live! 

Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.