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Tag: wolfberry

American Snout Butterflies on Wolfberry

October 3, 2018 / / 2 Comments

After I wrote last week’s post about insects gathering nectar and pollen from a flowering wolfberry plant,  I visited the plant once more.

It looked quite different. Rather than one or two snout butterflies here and there, there were over thirty fluttering around.

A closer view…

Can you see the long snout that gives them their common name?

The adult butterflies were only sipping nectar from the wolfberry flowers and it is not a host for them. Snouts lay their eggs on hackberry trees (Celtis sp.)

The caterpillars that hatch from the eggs are green. Butterflies and Moths of North America website has some photographs of the caterpillars. When they are done feeding, they form chrysalids that are a similar green color.

Today, the wolfberry has finished flowering. I wonder where the snout butterflies are now.

What We See, What They See

September 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

When I visited the yard this morning to take photographs for this post, first I checked to see what was flowering. Flowers are great places to find insects.

The little leaf cordia (Cordia parviflolia) attracted my eye. It was covered with clusters of white blossoms.

The flowers were beautiful, but nothing was visiting them. In contrast, the plant next to it was humming and buzzing.

That’s the wolfberry, Lycium species. It isn’t much to look at from a human perspective.

From an insect’s perspective, however, it was an open grocery store.

The honey bees and digger bees were lining up to sip nectar.

Smaller bees were wrapped around the anthers harvesting pollen.

When it was done, the underside of this one’s abdomen was white with pollen.

Snout butterflies visited the flowers, too. They are drab when sitting like this.

Surprise!

Numerous flower flies and a few wasps flitted around. This flower or hover fly has a really big head compared to the rest of its body.

From the street (top photograph) the wolfberry bush looks like a small cluster of brownish branches on the left between the bright green Texas sage on the bottom left and the little leaf cordia. If you didn’t know the wolfberry was there, you wouldn’t even see it. Just the same, it provides food for hundreds of insects which in turn pollinate our gardens and serve as food for wildlife.

I hope I can continue to convince our homeowner’s association that it deserves to stay.

Seed of the Week: Wolfberry or Thornbush

March 19, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Our mystery seeds from last week came from a wolfberry or thornbush, genus Lycium.

wolfberries-multiple

At least ten different species of wolfberries or thornbush grow in Arizona. Some common species are the Anderson thornbush, Lycium andersonii, Berlandier wolfberry, Lycium berlanderi, and the Fremont thornbush, Lycium fremontii.

wolfberry-berries

They are known for their lovely orange to red fruit.

wolfberry-plant

The plants can grow to be large, somewhat messy-looking shrubs.

wolfberry-flower

Regardless of their appearance, wolfberries are wonderful for wildlife gardens. Bees, butterflies and even hummingbirds will visit the purple to lavender flowers.

wolfberry-flower-and-fruit

A variety of birds and other wildlife eat the berries, which are often on the bush at the same time as the flowers.

The berries of the most species are also edible for humans. In fact, two species of Lycium from Asia have been used for their medicinal properties for thousands of years.

Caution: Wolfberries are related to some plants that can be poisonous – the nightshades- which can also have red berries and purple flowers. See for example the bittersweet nightshade, Solanum dulcamara. Also, avoid unripe berries.

Wolfberries are drought tolerant and grow easily in the desert. They can be started from seeds or purchased as plants from the nursery.

If you are interested in growing wildlife-friendly low-water-use plants, give wolfberries a try!

Interested in learning more about berries that grow in the West?

wild-berries-book

Wild Berries of the West by Betty B. Derig and Margaret Fuller

Paperback: 235 pages
Publisher: Mountain Press Publishing Company (June 1, 2003)
ISBN-10: 0878424334
ISBN-13: 978-0878424337

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