Happily feeding on our clumps of the native Asclepias perennis this week were Buckeye butterflies (Junonia coenia). The Buckeye butterfly originated in Africa, subsequently diversified in Asia and then spread to North America, where it is now widespread. As our entomologist Bill Reynolds likes to comment, the insects are better botanists than humans. The buckeye butterfly larvae used to feed on only certain plant genera in the Scrophulariaceae family. When the family was disassembled by the taxonomic empire, all the plant genera that the buckeye’s fed on were moved together to the Plantagineacae family, and those genera that they didn’t feed on, went to other plant families. So, the buckeye butterflies care about the family the plants are in, not their native origin.
