Logo courtesy of Rebecca Richman, protected by copyright, see
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Blackberry Summer
an essay on butterflies
written by Nancy
Stranahan, August 12, 2010
Photos as follows: Blackberry Flower &
Red-spotted Purple by Larry Henry; Open Questionmark, Giant Swallowtail,
and Tiger Swallowtails on Joe Pye by John Howard; Folded Questionmark by
Badjoby from Wickapedia; Black Swallowtail caterpillar on Queen Anne's
Lace by Jerry Dalrymple; Monarch chrysalis from
easttenneseewildflowers.com; Maturing Giant Swallowtail caterpillar by
Tim Pohlar
Blackberry Flower
The Arc
has certainly been well-watered this season. From April through mid-July the rains came to our corner of
southern Ohio and lingered. Summer brought dazzling hot sunny days. Brief
interludes of low brooding clouds dropped
curtains of white water. By mid May, the rolling grasslands were as green
and bucolic as a first grader’s crayon drawing. Clones of blackberry
flowers lit up the fields like miniature apple trees, so heavy with
bright white
flowers
one couldn’t see the vines that bore them. All my life I’ve heard the
mythic tales of summer blackberries from childhoods long past,
but the shriven seedy fruits I was familiar with each August bore
no resemblance to my Mother’s fond memories of filling buckets with sweet juicy
fruit. I had never seen, however, blackberry flowers quite as
prolific as those before me. Maybe this summer would be different.
By
June, everyone in our local community was busy raking wild black
raspberries off heavily loaded briers – a much earlier and dependable
crop -- carrying
gallons of berries home for cakes and jams. On my first visit to the
fencerow, before the burgeoning fruit weighed the vines to the ground,
I shared my early berries with a wild box turtle at my feet, who grasped
them with the same eagerness as my own grateful hand. The raspberries
were so
bountiful you could even buy homemade raspberry cobbler at
the truckstop for dessert, following a traditional local meal of chicken,
mashed potatoes, and green beans with bacon.
I digress. My intention was to talk about
butterflies.
You see, this is
the year. A year not
only for berries, but for butterflies, too. We might not experience
a summer like this again in southern Ohio for another ten years.
In
July, driving through the heart of the
Highlands Sanctuary on Cave Road was a start and stop affair. Entering the slanted
sunbeams that illuminated the dark forested road, a moving car would send
clouds of Questionmarks into the air from where they had
been puddling on the mineralized soils. With their wings closed, Questionmarks resembled dead brown leaves, except for a gleaming
glyph of metallic silver in the shape of a question mark on their hind
wing. These butterflies wear on their wings an eternal cosmic inquiry
for which there is no final answer. When their wings delicately
spread open, revealed are rich hues of dark amber, with a shocking
edging of
lavender violet.
Silver and gold. Of all the animals,
it seems only
insects have acquired the alchemical capacity to turn green plant matter
into precious metal, or so their rarest hues appear. The Questionmark's
glyph shinese like silver, but when the monarch butterfly forms it’s sea-green chrysalis, it sews
itself in with a
suture of gleaming gold.
Walking down Cave Road is more satisfying than
driving, allowing one to enjoy the full bouquet of forest butterflies,
and presenting a botany lesson in the process. The tame little Hackberry Emperors
alight on exposed arms and legs, taking a free ride while lapping up
perspiring salts. Zebra Swallowtails turn pawpaw leaves into
slow-flying adults, their extraordinarily long tails draped behind them
like royal robes as they dreamily cross the road. Redspotted Purples
slowly open and close their wings on the open roadway,
their bodies the pure extract of wild black cherry leaves. Spicebush
Butterfly caterpillars depend on their namesake, while Black
Swallowtails metamorphosize Queen Anne's Lace and other members of the
parsley family. Tiger
Swallowtails, the most regal of all, have their beginnings in the
Red=-potted Purple
canopies of tulip poplars and cherries.
What is this special kinship we feel
for the butterflies? What in our DNA sequence causes us to smile at their flight? What
evolutionary advantage is there in our joy, or in the creation of their
overly-large floppy paper-thin wings? The wings of a common fly, in
comparison, represent compact technical brilliance. With their high-speed wing
rotations, flies can make last-minute ninety-degree turns and are speedy
enough to overcome a
running man. You know their dexterity first-hand if you have ever tried to
outrun a deerfly or swat a housefly with your bare hands. Butterfly
anatomy, by comparison, looks like a failed 2nd grade science
project on aerodynamics, with wings composed of 50% whimsy and
watercolors, and 50% tissue paper and paper clips. But who could be so
impoverished in spirit to even think of swatting a butterfly?
Perhaps spirit is the magnet that attracts us to
butterflies. Maybe our kinship has nothing to do with science at all.
Spirit, it could be argued, is to earthly limitation what butterfly
flight is to gravity, what play is to work, art to science, infinity
to boundaries, laughter in the face of sorrow, and wisdom to lost innocence. Spirit and butterflies share a
lot in common. They are both improbable, playfully defiant, and
delicately strong. Butterflies are like the souls of children turned
inside out.
Two weeks ago, the largest butterfly in Eastern
United States appeared in my backyard, fluttering around my potted
plants. Talk about improbable! What was it
Great Swallowtail
doing here?
Giant Swallowtail
caterpillars are known to eat only plants belonging to the citrus family
Rutaceae. In the wilds of Ohio this family is restricted to
Prickly Ash (a great reason to grow this native shrub in your yard), and
Wafer Ash, a graceful but uncommon understory tree. I have never seen
either one of these woody plants anywhere close to the Sanctuary. But
the Swallowtail came
back the next day to the exact same place, and the
day thereafter as well. Then a dear friend pointed out the obvious. The
Giant Swallowtail was not fluttering around any old potted plant, but a
special gift I had recently received, the perennial Dictamnus albus,
known as Gas Plant or Burning Bush, native to southern Europe. The
Swallowtail wasn’t nectaring, it was laying tiny amber eggs! I rushed to
the internet, which confirmed my suspicions. Gas plant was indeed a member
of the Citrus family, and my single potted plant had lured a female into
my yard.
A few days later the little caterpillars hatched
out, and quickly turned into the most perfect imitations of bird droppings imaginable,
right down to the powdery blob of white uric acid on one end, and the
fibrous dark solid wastes on the other. Their mimicry was so well done,
that combined with their likely sequestration of plant toxins, they
apparently didn’t feel the need to hide from predators. The caterpillars
flaunted their strange bodies in full view, curving their bodies in the
"j" shape of bird excrement, their mid-sections gleaming as if still wet
from creation. As the caterpillars grew in size, their bird
dropping mimicry became less convincing, and their bodies began to
express a more serpentine strategy that was just as unappetizing. These little
guys definitely did NOT look like food.
Tiger Swallowtails
on Joe Pye
Questionmark
Questionmark Butterfly
Black Swallowtail Caterpillar on
Queen Anne's Lace
In
early August I headed toward Shawnee State Forest
to meet a good friend and botanist. “The swallowtails are spectacular
down there this year,” he forewarned me. “Yeah, they are awesome up
here, too,” I said. “You’ll see,” he replied. When I arrived I couldn’t
believe my eyes. We drove up a back road lined with mounds of Joe Pye Weed.
Around me weren’t dozens, as I
had expected, but hundreds and hundreds of swallowtails. Some flower
heads had six or seven butterflies on them alone. Most of them were Tiger
Swallowtails, known for their distinctive flight pattern of flapping
their wings for short periods of time, and then sail-gliding. When I
made the smallest move, they all softly spiraled into the sky at once.
Surrounded by this enlivened air, I felt the resurrection of joy,
and fought the impulse
to abandon the rest of the afternoon to flying kites and writing poetry.
Maturing Giant Swallowtail
Caterpillar
Later that afternoon I stopped at a friend’s and chatted under the shaded roof of her front porch. The details of our
easy conversation have already faded in memory, but I’ll never forget
seeing her dark silhouette against a bright backdrop of wild sunflowers
that were covered with
dozens of fluttering Silver Spangled Fritillaries; while Commas, Questionmarks, and Hackberry Emperors haloed her head and tasted her
bare shoulders.
Departing along her driveway, I nearly stepped on a tiny puddle of Tiger
Swallowtails. Sixteen of the creatures fluttered heavenward. When they passed by my head and dispersed into
the forest, I recalled the poem by Polish writer, Wislawa Szymborska,
simply titled Sky, the first and last stanza which are shared with you here:
The sky is where
we should have started.
Window without a
sill, without a frame, without a pane.
An opening wide
open, with nothing
beyond it.
…
Dividing earth and
sky
is not the right
way
to think about
this wholeness.
It only allows one
to live
at a more precise
address---
were I be searched
for
I’d be found much
faster.
My distinguishing
marks
are rapture and
despair. 1
July came and so did the blackberries. They
turned out to be sweet, plump, and good, just like my Mother had
remembered them.
As
I write the butterflies are still in record numbers outside my window. I
hope you get a chance to go outside and see them.
Monarch chrysalis
1. We thank John Beeker for generously gifting the Arc
with Wislawa
Symborska’s book of poems, titled Miracle Fair. Masterfully
translated into English by Joanna Trzeciak, we highly recommend this
book be added to your personal collection.