Gardening for wildlife-Red Pierrot Butterfly
-Susan Sharma
A succulent plant called “Kalanchoe” is a favorite with most gardeners.
It does not call for any extra care, needs little water and not much sun.
So what if the blooms appear only during spring, the rest of the year, the succulent leaves look pretty in a pot.
That the “kalanchoe” is a host plant for a flitting small butterfly called “red pierrot” is a fact I learnt from discussions in a yahoo group on butterflies
(http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ButterflyIndia/).
This bit of knowledge cleared another puzzle for me.
I had photographed a chrysalis or pupa sitting on the kalanchoe leaf sometime back.
I have been wondering what will come out of that pupa.
But could not follow that through.
Now it all fell in place.
The pupa was that of the red pierrot who I had noticed flitting about once in a while in my garden.
I had witnessed the web of life, which connected the butterfly and its host plant!
