National Butterfly Awareness Day ~ June 6

The Association For Butterflies' first National Butterfly Awareness Day was held on June 6, 2009.

Promoted through the AFB website and individually by butterfly farmers, we consider it a success.

The primary purposes were to educate people about butterfly releases, to encourage people to plant butterfly gardens to help alleviate disappearing butterfly habitats, and to urge children to raise butterflies.

One such event took place in Charlottesville, VA. Linda Marchman of Social Butterflies contacted the local newspaper and promoted NBAD in an article. A small crowd gathered at a local park as she discussed butterfly host and nectar plants, pointed out sassafras trees as a host plant for Spicebush caterpillars and discovered some false nettle growing wild with a Red Admiral caterpillar hiding in a leaf fold. She then released a dozen butterflies, including Monarchs, Painted ladies, and Black Swallowtails. The attendees all said they would look forward to next year's NBAD.

The AFB hopes that other people will get involved next year so that it will be celebrated throughout the country for years to come.

Dogbane vs Mlkweed

Can you tell which plant is milkweed and which plant is dogbane? Many people confuse the two. The result is starved caterpillars. Dogbane will not be eaten by Monarch larvae/caterpillars.

The plant on the left is dogbane and the plant on the right is common milkweed. White sap is present in both plants.

Milkweed stems are hollow and dogbane stems are solid. Dogbane has reddish stems and common milkweed has green stems.



The flowers resemble milkweed in this species of dogbane but it is not the exact same flowers. Some species of dogbane grows flowers that closely resemble milkweed flowers.

If you're not sure if what you have is milkweed, send a photo to a professional who knows the difference. Remember, if you try to feed dogbane to Monarch larvae, you will starve them to death!