Joann Merritt's Essays

The Wearin’ Of The Green
March, 2002

Aye! ‘Twas a grand and glorious day in March when we celebrated the greening of the countryside around Lake Sweetwater. We delighted in sunshine, green juniper trees, WATER in the lake, patches of wildflowers in bloom and NO DUST! Don and I chanced upon a sunny glen where surely the leprechauns had held their St. Patrick’s Day celebration. Although we did not capture a leprechaun, one of them must have subliminally revealed to us the secret hiding place of their treasure. How else could we have found it?

The coveted treasure consisted of green, yellow, orange, white, gray and black colored butterflies of 14 species. With the exception of Mourning Cloak and Goatweed they were all nectaring on the Cloth-of-Gold’s myriad of tiny flowers. Cloth-of-Gold is an early spring mustard that I usually refer to as Bladderpod but somehow that name didn’t harmonize with the aura of this semi-magical place. The English Camberwell Beauty (our Mourning Cloak) basked in the sunshine displaying its royal robes, then majestically curtsied and floated as it winged along its chosen path.

Bright green “Olive” Juniper Hairstreaks with a wee bit of rust peeking out above the hind wings visually demonstrated the “wearin’ o’ the green”. We considered our lucky four-leaf clover to have taken the form of this four-winged green butterfly. During 1996-97 “Olive” Hairstreaks (collective noun “Jars”?) established a breeding population in Midland using windbreak evergreens as host plants, then abruptly disappeared. I blame the drought.

After trying in vain to snap a picture of Falcate Orangetips we concur with Jeffery Glassberg’s assessment of a butterfly he was trying to photograph: “A candidate for ritalin if I’ve ever seen one.” We observed three Orangetips behaving like exuberant children on an Easter Egg Hunt, never pausing long enough at any one place for Don to get them in focus. Orangetips are present only in early spring, they produce a single brood and are gone for the remainder of the year. These butterflies are very beautiful but not willing to waste a moment of their limited lifespan by sitting for a portrait. Their wing’s upper side is soft velvety white, the forewing tipped with orange which is further tipped by black and white checks. Dark marbling on the underside effectively camouflaged the orange tips when they stopped on the hillsides in the midst of shrubs, brambles or bushes. And there they remained hidden until deciding on their own terms when or if they would emerge.

Midland County has one March record of a Falcate Orangetip, but no confirming picture. The only image we have is stored in our memory which as of now is sharp and clear, begorra!

Aye! ‘Twas a grand and glorious day!