Butterfly Host Plants and Nectar Plants

What are butterfly host plants?

Butterflies and plants have an essential relationship. Butterfly host plants provide female butterflies with the perfect place to lay their eggs. Female butterflies can fly for miles in search of host plants to lay their eggs on.

After the eggs hatch, caterpillars want to eat, eat, eat! They eat the leaves of the host plant.

Different host plants attract different species of butterflies. And each species of butterfly are only found where those host plants grow. Host plants can be wildflowers, herbs, shrubs or trees.

For example, the host plants of the monarch butterfly are several types of milkweed that grow in Canada, USA, and Mexico.

The host plants of the mourning cloak butterfly are elms, cottonwoods and willow trees.

The favorite host plant of the Painted Lady Butterfly is the thistle. There are 60 species of thistles native to North America. Painted Lady caterpillars feed on over 300 host plants including thistle, mallows, sunflowers, hollyhock, and asters. Found all over the world, the host plants grow in gardens, roadsides, open fields and sunny meadows. Some host plants contain toxins that make the Painted Lady caterpillars taste bad to predators.

These are some of the ways that plants and animals are interconnected and depend on each other for survival.

IMPORTANT: The use of pesticides and herbicides, as well as mowing down host and nectar plants in our highway roadsides, city parks, school yards, gardens and homes, has been killing butterflies, bees and other pollinators. Pesticides and herbicides also have a serious impact on the health of children and adults.

What are butterfly nectar plants?
Flowering plants, shrubs and trees are all butterfly nectar plants. Nectar is a sweet liquid produced by flowering plants. Nectar attracts butterflies, hummingbirds, bats, and other pollinators. For butterflies, it is a good source of energy. Bees collect nectar to turn into honey. Nectar is also rich in vitamins and  salts which insects need.

Nectar is important for pollination. The nectar attracts a butterfly or other pollinator. While feeding on nectar, pollen sticks to the butterfly. Some of the pollen is transferred ato the next flower. The butterfly just wants a meal, but is also helping the plant create seeds.

Tall Thistle – by Eric Hunt – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Hollyhock – by Ashish Thorat – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en