In addition to butterfly weed, numerous plants, ranging from trees to annuals, serve as hosts for caterpillars. Many of these plants, such as fragrant viburnum shrub and red oak tree, will enhance any landscape, regardless of whether you wish to attract butterflies or not.
Since the diversity of plant host options for butterfly caterpillars is so impressive, I think the most instructive way to organize them for presentation is to group them by plant type. I will restrict myself to a few examples, since my intention is not to be exhaustive, but rather merely to introduce the subject. Butterfly species especially drawn to a particular plant are noted. As usual, I provide the common names, as well as the scientific names used in plant taxonomy:
Trees and Shrubs as Caterpillar Food
- Flowering dogwood trees, (such as Cornus florida): Spring azure blue butterfly caterpillars.
- Viburnums (such as the fragrant Korean spice viburnum, Viburnum carlesii 'Aurora'; for a picture of Korean spice viburnum see photo at top of page): Spring azure blues.
- Easter cottonwood (Populus deltoides): Tiger swallowtail butterfly caterpillars.
- Oak trees (such as red oak trees, Quercus rubra): Red-spotted purple butterfly caterpillars.
- Curly-leaf parsley (Petroselinum crispum) and dill (Anethum graveolens): Black swallowtail butterfly caterpillars.
- Carrots (Daucus carota) and celery (Apium graveolens): Black swallowtail.
- Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca): Monarch butterfly caterpillars.
- Red clover (Trifolium pratense): Clouded sulfur butterfly caterpillars.
- Hollyhocks (Alcea rosea): Painted Lady and checkered skipper butterfly caterpillars.
- Steeple bush, or meadow sweet (Spiraea tomentosa): Spring azure blues.
Annual Flowers as Caterpillar Food
- Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus): Painted Lady.
- Zinnia (Zinnia elegans): Silver-spotted skipper butterfly capterpillars.
On Page 3 we’ll look at plants for attracting adult butterflies to your yard….
