I first became acquainted with the Gulf Fritillary butterfly, which is not nearly as famous as the Monarch, quite by accident. I had ordered some passion flowers, aka maypops, and paid good money for them from a garden bulletin, because I loved the flowers, and the maypops reminded me of childhood. (Keep that good money in mind for later in this story.)
I had them about two or three years when I noticed a stunning caterpillar munching away on the leaves one morning. He or she was bright orange with black spikes all over. I googled quickly to see what it was and found the caterpillar for the Gulf Fritillary butterfly. From that point, summers became engaged with watching the butterflies lay eggs on the plant that grew into caterpillars and morphed into butterflies. Like most caterpillars, the Gulf Fritillaries are picky eaters and only feed on the maypop plant. You know how kids can be. I had lots of lantana nearby for the more mature tastes of the adult butterfly.
We moved to our new place in the fall of 2019. I transplanted a few maypops from our former house, which all immediately died. Not to worry, the people who bought our house had kindly offered for me to come back in the spring for anything from my old garden that I would like to transplant. Now if you are paying attention, you know what 2020 brought. At planting time, we weren’t going anywhere for anything. I ordered some lantana sent out by delivery without making contact with the delivery person. I discovered along the roadside on my nature walk some passion flower vines. It seems they are native to Mississippi and come up everywhere. I dug a few and brought them home – no good money involved. (Felder Rushing, our MS garden guru, says this digging along the roadside is quite all right.)
Evidently, it takes about two years for the plant to be established enough for the blooms to be prolific enough for butterflies to notice. My maypop vines have spread nicely by this year in 2022 with blooms squirreled away for me to find. The leaves have suspicious holes eaten out, though I haven’t seen a caterpillar yet. And the butterflies? This morning, I checked on the lantana that has thrived from the beginning. It brought me to a Gulf Fritillary almost hidden in color camouflage with the flower he or she was tasting.