Painted Lady Butterfly - Vanessa cardui

The Painted Lady Butterfly will rest on the ground or on flowers to get a drink of nectar to keep them going. There is a webpage discussing the link between El Nino and the massive Painted Lady Butterfly migrations. Painted Lady Butterflies come into the yard's adjacent to weedy lots commonly in the Spring. They thrive on a wide variety of plant material including a number of plants in the hibiscus family including Lavatera, Pavonia, Anisodontea, and Alyogyne. Many of the composites including Baileya ,Cosmos, Solidago, Erigeron, Gnaphalium californicum, Leucanthemum superbum, Senecio confusus, and Osteospermum. The preferred food is the thistle, including Centaurea gymnocarpa, hence the other common name for Vanessa cardui, Thistle Butterfly. One of the larger Genera of thistles is Carduus.