BUDDLEJA BUDDIES - CRITTERS SUNDAY

No this isn't the nature reserve, garden or park, but a humble, Ramsey back alley. Amazing where you find photo opportunities. Hardly seen any butterflies or bees this year and now both appear on this beautiful bush. I call this bush a buddleja( pronounced buddleha) but I've noticed in America it's called a butterfly bush. I can see why. Butterflies to swamp them. What of it's strange name though?



Buddleja is actually a spelling mistake. The plant was named after the Reverend Adam Buddle who was a botanist and a rector in Essex, England. The botanic name has been the source of some confusion. By the usual practice of botanical Latin, the spelling of a genus name made from "Buddle" would be "Buddleia". However, Linnaeus wrote it down as "Buddleja", and never changed it, so by the rule of naming priority, "Buddleja" should be preferred, though the i/j interchange could be modernized as an orthographical variant.


Several species are popular garden plants, The species are commonly known as Butterfly Bush due to their attractiveness to butterflies; they are also attractive to bees, moths and ladybirds/ ladybugs. The species of buddleia with red flowers are also attractive to hummingbirds.


Some species are commonly found as escapees from the garden. B. davidii in particular is a great coloniser of dry open ground; in towns in Britain, it often self-sows on waste ground, where it grows into a dense thicket, and it is listed as an invasive species in many areas. It is frequently seen beside railway lines, on derelict factory sites and after the Second World War on urban bomb sites. This accounts for me finding this buddleja pictured down a stoney back alley. A garden escapee I like that.


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ABC WEDNESDAY - P IS FOR PAINTED LADY

I was going to have a different "P" image, then I spotted the first butterfly of the year, a Painted Lady. Unfortunately I didn't have the macro lens with me, so it was another lie on the ground point and shoot jobs.

Now I'm no butterfly expert, so youprhaps you are able to help me out here.? For that reason you won't be getting all the latin names. Take up far too much blog space. I do know the Painted Lady is pretty widespread and found on every continent bar Antartica. I know they vary slightly from continent to continent and there are even sub species. I have read that the American Painted Lady is often refered to as a "Cosmopolitan." Is that true or is it another one of those urban myths that gets lost in translation? Like I said, not an expert in this area, so you tell me on this one.

I was also hoping to show you George the pelican that often escapes from the wildlife park and flies here to Ramsey, but he hasn't shown up for a while.

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