This weekend's butterfly survey in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve led to a serendipitous discovery. Mohave milkweed is a common host plant for Queen and Monarch butterflies. Previously we had known of only three small populations of Mohave milkweed in the preserve. But one group of butterfly hunters, @ezpixels among them, working in the northeast preserve found a tremendous number of Mohave milkweed plants along Old Paint Wash and Soapberry Wash trails.
Word got out, and a flurry of late Saturday night emails resulted in @ezpixels, @cactus_hugger of the Desert Botanical Garden's Seeds of Success program, Natalie Gagnon (a DBG butterfly ecologist) and I hieing ourselves out bright and early this morning to map the populations. We mapped eight locations, some of them sizeable. I suspect there are many more populations in the sparsely-botanized northeastern corner of the preserve.
In the process we added two grass taxa to the preserve flora, the non-native ripgut grass and the native appressed muhly. Also, after two spring seasons of chasing Lucy's Warblers, I finally got 'im!
Nectaring on Cirsium neomexicanum
Vegetative only; can't call the species.
New taxon for the preserve flora. Non-native.
New taxon for the preserve flora.
Only specimen entered; we were mapping this species and found quite a lot. Buds present.
Nectaring on Cirsium neomexicanum
I've been chasing this species all spring and last spring as well. Got 'im!
Comments
Fantastic documentation! Your posts have helped me with IDs so many times. Thank you :-)
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