Tropical milkweed flowers

[Beverly]

You bought plants? and did not grow from seed? By "butterflies" do you mean Monarchs? If the Monarchs do not visit them they may have been sprayed by pesticides/insecticides if they were plants when you bought them. Florida has a year around population of Monarchs that do not migrate to Mexico in the winter. If you are talking about butterflies other than Monarchs and only have one blossom and 4 plants, they are probably nectaring on other more mature plants.

Oh excuse me alp, i was directing my question to @CrazyConure relative to his situation at the present time. I should have made that more specific, sorry

 

[Beverly]

These are not tuberosa as you were talking about. They are tropical milkweed. Asclepias Curassavica

Correct, @LIcenter and thanks for clarifying. @alp, the plant that @CrazyConure is showing us and the one that he is growing is Asclepias curassavica commonly called by a number of names actually, but the common name used here is Tropical milkweed. There are many different species of Asclepias that range from the tropics up into Canada as native plants to their specific areas.

 

[roadrunner]

I see a few monarchs flying around outside, but I don't see them on the flower itself. I guess I'll have to wait a bit.

I don't spray anything on this plant.

It's very easy to spot the eggs on the underside of the leaves; the eggs are little yellow dots, usually laid somewhere away from the edge of the leaf.

But only 5% survive. Once an egg is laid it's in danger of being consumed by numerous suspects from ants to wasps and everything in between. https://monarchjointventure.org/threats/natural-enemies

Excerpt:

"Monarch eggs and small larvae face considerable dangers of predation, and only about 5% of monarchs reach the last larval instar. Ants, spiders, true bugs, beetles, and lacewing larvae are some known predators of monarch eggs and larvae. In a laboratory experiment, one lacewing larva was observed consuming 40 monarch eggs. Chinese mantids and paper wasps have also been observed preying on immature monarchs. Adults face less danger of being eaten by predators during the breeding season, but there is a much greater risk of being eaten by bird predators in overwintering locations. In Mexico, the black-headed grosbeak, black-backed oriole, and Scott’s oriole are responsible for much of the predation of overwintering monarchs, with some additional predation by mice. In California, Rufous-sided towhees consume adult monarchs in overwintering clusters."


I can't tell you how many times I've seen eggs, but only a handful of times I've found a fully grown caterpillar form into a chrysalis. All you can do is create habitat that promotes diversity. If all you have are plants that are host to monarchs than that's the only source of food you're providing to the predators. I have many different types of host plants that provide tons of habitat for numerous prey.

 

[Beverly]

@roadrunner it is interesting that your Monarch eggs are yellow, mine are white and much larger than a dot. Very curious that.

Also, this is @CrazyConure 's first year of having host plants for Monarchs and the predators take awhile to catch up. I had almost no predators in the first year (10 years ago). Now i make sure that the caterpillars have natural places to hide during the day when they mostly sleep and i have a much higher success rate in bringing caterpillars to full adulthood. The first year, when i hardly knew what i was doing, i had over 125 healthy flying Monarch's eclose in one day. That was quite a feat for my oh so small garden. I got the count by counting the empty chrysalises i found so there were probably more than 125

 

[roadrunner]

@roadrunner it is interesting that your Monarch eggs are yellow, mine are white and much larger than a dot. Very curious that.

Also, this is @CrazyConure 's first year of having host plants for Monarchs and the predators take awhile to catch up. I had almost no predators in the first year (10 years ago). Now i make sure that the caterpillars have natural places to hide during the day when they mostly sleep and i have a much higher success rate in bringing caterpillars to full adulthood. The first year, when i hardly knew what i was doing, i had over 125 healthy flying Monarch's eclose in one day. That was quite a feat for my oh so small garden. I got the count by counting the empty chrysalises i found so there were probably more than 125

I don't mean to make it sound as if it's a deep yellow -- it's not; however, it does have a slight yellow hue, much like the below pics. As for the size of the dot, I didn't mean to make it sound as if they are extremely tiny, they are very easy to spot.

https://www.google.com/search?q=images+of+monarch+butterfly+eggs&tbm=isch&imgil=6meLQNv7VVPujM%3A%3ByLuQlrru9asWaM%3Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.learner.org%252Fjnorth%252Ftm%252Fmonarch%252Fegg_butterflies_gallery.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=6meLQNv7VVPujM%3A%2CyLuQlrru9asWaM%2C_&usg=__xKxq9faWVVpH7-sT6qRFHO2qFow=&biw=1600&bih=794&dpr=1&ved=0ahUKEwjKgZu6u4bUAhWC7iYKHX7KCy4QyjcIOw&ei=K2ckWYrAO4LdmwH-lK_wAg#imgrc=3nTtIq0eVNnLkM:

Here are some examples of the predators I have in my yard and they do a number on the caterpillars, not just monarchs, but anything that lays eggs in the numerous other host plants I have. My Live Oak, simply because of its size gets the most visitation from wasps.

I'm not sure how well you can make it out, but the first pic is of a wasp with some type of caterpillar it just caught and the nest below has tons of wasps coming back carrying its "cargo".

I'll try and get better pics later.

 

[Beverly]

@roadrunner i did look up some images of Monarch eggs and the coloring ranges from white to yellow. Possibly the newly laid eggs are whiter and as the caterpillar matures in the egg it adds a yellow color. I've never paid close enough attention to this possibility. Or the eggs are laid either yellow or white. At any rate it seems perfectly normal.

As for me, i've seen plenty of wasps eating caterpillars and don't have any interest in seeing more photos of wasps eating caterpillars, but the other participants here may like to see them.

If i catch a wasp of any size (and they range from practically a dot to as long as 2 inches/5 cm), that wasp is going to die at my hands, guaranteed. You will say that it is the natural way for wasps to eat caterpillars, but it is the natural way for all of nature to have some sort of predator, and if you are a wasp, that predator would be me. The wasps that come into my garden are scared to death of me, and i like it that way

 

[CrazyConure]

Hi guys. I'm having a little problem with my milkweed.

The flowers have little droplets in them. I touched it and it's very sticky. The flower has little black things all over inside it. I don't know what to do. Should I spray with soap?

@Beth_B @Chuck should I buy ladybugs? We don't have any aphid predictors here.

 

[Chuck]

Hi guys. I'm having a little problem with my milkweed.

The flowers have little droplets in them. I touched it and it's very sticky. The flower has little black things all over inside it. I don't know what to do. Should I spray with soap?

@Beth_B @Chuck should I buy ladybugs? We don't have any aphid predictors here.

Without pictures it is difficult to tell. Sticky means, to me, that the plant is producing sugars which will attract numerous good and bad insects. Need more info.

 

[CrazyConure]

Just got the pictures. There are droplets on all of the flowers. I hope you can see it. You can also see the little black.

 

[roadrunner]

I don't know exactly what those black spots are, but feel confident it's part of the flower anatomy. Notice how they're all in the same general location on all flowers.



EDIT: I think I see similar black spots on these flowers: https://www.google.com/search?q=ima...g#imgdii=70CriAoUU24csM:&imgrc=mK3gWNEWBviuGM:

 

[Chuck]

Looks like nectar to me. You might have numerous insects come visit. If the plant is healthy, which it looks like it is, you will have nothing to worry about. Keep a close watch. If something seems to go wrong you know what to do

 

[Beverly]

The sticky stuff is nectar and natural. The black spots may be tiny caterpillar poops. This means you might find a very wee baby caterpillar munching on a flower or bud. The very tiny ones like the buds to eat because the buds are less toxic than the leaves. Actually, looking at the photos, the dark spots are part of the flower most likely.