On 2013-08-24 09:21:52 +0000, mark said:

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2013-08-23 19:30:04 +0100, mark said:

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2013-08-21 13:07:20 +0100, CT said:

Sacha wrote:

On 2013-08-21 12:13:55 +0100, CT said:

Sacha wrote:

It's a Postman Butterfly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliconius_melpomene

How terrific of you and Stewart to come up with that so quickly.
Thank you very much indeed. It says that it's poisonous but not to
what! Man, birds, other insects? Only other butterflies, I wonder?
I'll do some more looking up. The Nursery team will be thrilled to
know about it. We have quite a lot of passion flowers in various
greenhouses, so that could explain how it found its way to us. Thank
you very much!

I did cheat a little.

I'd been to the "Butterflies in the Glasshouse" at RHS Wisley earlier
in the year and that looked vaguely familiar so I Googled for their
Butterfly ID sheet that they gave out at the time and found this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-20992861

See the 4th image!


I was in a garden centre in New Zealand and noticed some plants had
lots of caterpillars which I dutifully reported to a member of staff.
Apparently they are sold like that so people can have exotic
butterflies in their own greenhouses.

mark

If that was in the North island, I suppose it doesn't matter if they
escape into the wild, either.
--

It was in Christchurch. We were in the garden centre to buy our host a
tree by way of a thankyou.

mark

Bit chilly in winter, perhaps? We were there in October/November,
though we didn't visit Christchurch. It was warm with a coat needed
occasionally, sort of weather. But the real winter probably wouldn't
be kind to exotic butterflies. I'd love to net a greenhouse here and
let such beautiful creatures into it, but it's not very practical for
us, unfortunately. Did they tell you if that's what people do there,
or how the whole thing works? It sounds lovely.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon