Last Dance

by Mary Carol Story

Title

Last Dance

Artist

Mary Carol Story

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Featured Image:

Wisconsin Flowers and Scenery
ABC Group
FAA Featured Images

PAINTED LADY BUTTERFLY - In general, the Painted Lady is a large butterfly (wing span 5-9 cm (2.0-3.5 in)) identified by the black and white corners of its mainly deep orange, black-spotted wings. It has five white spots in the black forewing tips and while the orange areas may be pale here and there, there are no clean white dots in them. The hindwings carry four small submarginal eyespots on dorsal and ventral sides. Those on the dorsal side are black, but in the summer morph sometimes small blue pupils are present in some.
The American Painted Lady (V. virginiensis) is most easily distinguishable by its two large hindwing eyespots on the ventral side. virginiensis also features a white dot within the subapical field of the forewings set in pink on the ventral side, and often as a smaller clean white dot in the orange of the dorsal side too. A less reliable indicator is the row of eyespots on the dorsal submarginal hindwing; virginiensis often has two larger outer spots with blue pupils. The black forewing tips have four to five white spots; usually the largest is whitish orange.

*GIANT IRONWEED* grows 1 to 3 meters (3.3 to 9.8 feet) tall. The stem is rigid mostly smooth, sometimes with a few silky white hairs near the leaf bases. Leaves are alternate, 10 to 30 centimeters (4 to 12 inches) long, and 2 to 4 centimeters (0.75 to 1.5 inches) wide. The leaves are smooth on top, usually dark green, and smooth to white pubescent beneath. Heads are generally in clusters of 10 to 20 at the end of branches and multiple branches may loosely overlap to produce flowering masses 10 to 18 centimeters (4 to 7 inches) across. Each head generally has 15 to 25 individual disk flowers in it. The flowers are purple, rarely white, in this species.
Giant ironweed is a species of prairies and other grasslands, old fields, roadsides, savannas and woodlands growing on dry to moist soils. It is especially common in overgrazed pasture. Cattle and other livestock do not eat it and overgrazing provides the conditions needed for germination. It is often considered a bad agricultural weed. This species has one of the largest ranges of the ironweed species. It is found from Iowa and Kansas south to Texas and east to New York south to Florida with the exception New Jersey. It is also known from Michigan and Ontario. It is most common in the Ohio and lower Mississippi valleys.

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April 8th, 2014

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