Butterflies: Butterflies and fudinites

To stop the butterflies from traveling on your page, click on one with your mouse and they will go away.

To be able to love a butterfly…
We must care for a few caterpillars.
(author unknown)

We have a weed vine I call Honeyvine. It is Cynanchum laeve (perhaps more frequently known by its old scientific name, Ampelamus albidus); commonly known as honeyvine, honeyvine milkweed, or climbing milkweed. It is a milkweed although it does not have milky sap, but the seeds and seedpods are typical of the milkweed family. It can grow to ten feet; the blooms are loved by butterflies and insects, and have a wonderful sweet, honey scent that floats around.

I used to keep it cleared away, but as I have gotten older and less productive it gets filled out before I can catch up with it. After that point, I leave it for the butterflies. It can get quite tanglely and messy, but I’m more tolerant these days. When I have help in early spring I ask them to pull it. Later when we come across a missed plant, I explain that from now on, the vines should not be pulled for there may be butterfly eggs on them. Once they go to seed, to keep them from spreading, we remove the green seedpods, and send them to the landfill tied in a plastic bag before they ripen.

When one of my helpers a few years ago kept calling it fudinite vine, I finally said, “What?!” He replied, “That’s what my dad calls it… fudinite, because you pull it today and by morning it has grown a foot, a foot a night.” Ah… a-foot-a-night. Then I understood and had a good laugh.

You may recognize it. It is the heart-shaped leaf among the holly leaves.

It starts out as a young plant that looks like this:

Next thing you know, it is sprawling over other plants.

Then it climbs like this one climbing old evening primrose stalks in a scruffy area. (Enlarge photo to see it better.)

The blossoms are very fragrant with the honey-like scent. Here it is on top of the ground cover Gold Moss (Sedum acre).

I found this entry in my journal notes:
August 10, 2007: found 4 Monarch butterfly larvae, 3 on Honeyvine Milkweed, and 1 on dandelion!

It was the one on dandelion that surprised me.

Monarchs enjoy the nectar and lay eggs on Honeyvine.
(You may have to enlarge photo to see them.)

The first summer the vines got ahead of me, I soon noticed that every vine had eggs and babies. I called a halt to the pulling of the vines.