File:Butterfly feeding from butterfly bush.jpg

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Originally uploaded by w:User:Richardelainechambers

Closeup of a butterfly feeding from flowers of a butterfly bush, Statesboro GA USA. Photo by Richard Chambers June 2004 using Olympus C-740 with full 10x zoom from about 1 meter distance. This was about the third shot I tried as the butterfly kept flitting about from spire to spire.

This particular butterfly appears to be a Pipevine Swallowtail.

A butterfly bush is a type of short, woody shrub with spires or trusses of flowers. They come in several different colors of reds and purples with a white variety as well. The flowers are very attractive to butterflies and bees. The red varieties are attractive to hummingbirds.

They grow perhaps a meter and a half to two meters depending on soil condition. We have found them to be drought tolerant. When watered well with well conditioned soil, ours have reached a height of two meters in North Georgia.

The butterfly bush looks similar to the chaste tree which has similar looking flowers and foliage. The butterfly bush is smaller with a shrub like form rather than the small tree like form of the chaste tree.

In North Georgia, they tend to die back but in South Georgia they seem to tolerate the winters quite nicely without a dieback. We usually dead head ours so they will continue producing flowers all summer and then cut them back in the winter.

Butterfly bush is a China native and can be invasive in the US according to some information.

External Links:

 Pipevine Swallowtail
   http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/bflyusa/ga/692.htm

 Butterflies of Georgia
   http://www.shrike.net/butterflies/

 Butterfly bush
   http://butterflywebsite.com/articles/bgq/buddleia.htm
   http://www.floridata.com/ref/b/budd_dav.cfm