I’ve photographed Butterflyweed twice this year. A type of milkweed, butterflyweed has very distinctive flowers that grow in flat clusters of about 20 flowers.
The first butterflyweed I saw was in northern Florida in early May. It was growing wild and we spotted it while taking the dogs for a walk. I thought it was such an unusual flower that I had to go back and get my camera to take some photos of it.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
Over the summer, I saw signs in a couple of gardens indicating that there were butterflyweed plants in the area – but I never found them to photograph.
On Monday, I found a different variety of Butterflyweed at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA. Instead of the orange flowers I saw in Florida, these are varying shades of yellow, orange and red.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
In these last two photos, you can see the flower petals opening up out of the the round red balls. The petals are red on the outside and orange on the inside.
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
(c) 2008 Patty Hankins
Butterflyweed is a perennial flower that butterflies and hummingbirds like. I’m hoping to photograph it next year with some butterflies.
The yellow and orange combination is very striking. Not sure I’ve seen that before.
I’ve had butterfly weed in my garden. A butterfly can live it’s whole life cycle on it. At times we’d have 10 or so caterpillars eating the leaves. Thanks for sharing the beautiful pics!