Where is the butterfly banquet?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

September 26, 2001

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The buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) [sef a lan' thus ok' si den tal' is] grow in the secret, swampy places in eastern North America. These are the haunts of wood ducks and warblers. Seldom do people see the buttonbush in bloom for they flower when the summer rains have inundated the shrub swamps. Few ever venture into the water and muck. But then, again, we weren't invited. This is probably just fine with the attendees that no human interlopes
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Cypress Swamp with Reflections, George Smith State Park, Georgia, USA Photographic Print Joanne Wells
Buy Photographic Print at AllPosters.com

on the butterfly banquet.

The buttonbush bloom with myriads of nectar-rich flowers in compact heads. The swamp becomes fragrant. It is banquet time for honey bees, bumblebees, and swallowtail butterflies--Palamedes, Spicebush, Eastern Tiger, Polydamas, and Giant--so many butterflies. The insects are fixated on the feast. In a few weeks the flowers will be spent, the banquet over, and the buttonbush will change flower heads into seed heads.

In the autumn when the soils dry, the buttonbush stand bereft of leaves and flowers. The seed heads become hard brown globes. They are now food for the waterfowl in these lonely places.

But enough seeds will survive to grow into bushes, that will bloom in the summer's heat, that will feed the generations of butterflies, that will pollinate the flowers, that will give rise to the seeds. Generations of buttonbush and butterflies and most of us don't even suspect that in the secret swampy places there is beauty that happens without us.

The University of Southern Indiana has a beautiful site about the Twin Swamps Preserve.

Click link to view a photograph of the buttonbush

Butterflies and Moths of North America has an excellent butterfly site.

http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/

Scroll down and click on the individual links.

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