Ornamental Cherry as Host Plant

[jwa121]

On the 8th of June here in Vancouver, Canada, I watched a Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio rutulus) laying eggs on the leaves of a very large, very old, ornamental cherry tree growing on a city boulevard.

The leaves the butterfly was periodically pausing to lay its eggs on were high overhead and out of my reach. But the butterfly finally did lay a single egg on the (upper) surface of a leaf that I was able to reach. I recovered the leaf and intend to rear the resulting caterpillar on Wild Black Cherry (Prunus serotina).

I didn’t know until now that these butterflies would choose to lay eggs on the leaves of an ornamental cherry - a cultivar that produces showy pink blossoms, but no actual cherries.

[Chuck]

Not surprising. I watched a glaucus (or glaucus x canadensis, more accurately) ovipositing on apply on 06 June 2022.