A Bevy of Blooms and Butterflies

Widespread pesticide use and natural habi-tat destruction. “Visitors often reminisce about how they’d seen fields of butterflies when growing up, but no longer,” said Elaine McGinn, Desert Botanical Garden’s director of exhibits Visitors can spot many indigenous Arizona species among the ranks at the pavilion. One afternoon, a giant swallowtail fanned its dis-tinctive two-toned wings — brownish-black and yellow-spotted above, cream-colored below — and sipped nectar from a golden columbine flower. Rich mahogany brown, white-spotted queens fluttered by, patrolling the airspace in search of mates. Nearby, bril-liant yellow cloudless sulphurs “puddled” — gathered around wet mud — sipping nutrients through their long, coiled tubes called proboscises.

Meanwhile, queens and look-alike vice-roys, both with lacy orange and black pat-terning, basked on rocks with their wings outstretched. Butterflies from other regions — zebra longwings, malachites and white peacocks—flitted among purple trailing lan-tanas, firecracker penstemons and blackfoot daisies. As afternoon edged to sunset, but-terfly bedtime, several clung to the mesh enclosure and closed their wings to roost, the butterfly’s version of sleep, until mid-morning.

At the pavilion exit, signs warned of “hitchhikers” that might still be along for the ride. Garden volunteers checked visi-tors’ clothing on the way out, to ensure there were no escapees.

Outside, children and adults stood transfixed in front of the glass-enclosed emergence chamber, waiting expectantly to see the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Here chrysalides, or butterfly cocoons, dangle from glass shelves like earrings at a jewelry store counter.

Inside the chamber, butterfly consultant Ann Taylor dotted a shelf's underside with a hot glue gun and attached another chrysalis. In their natural habitat, caterpillars find a safe location to pupate (change into a chrysalis). Using silk produced by silk glands, they spin a self-enclosing mat and attach themselves to plants with silken threads. “We’re just replacing the silk that would be there naturally with a little bit of glue,” she said, repeating the process until nearly 50 chrysalides were hung.

would be there naturally with a little bit of glue,” she said, repeating the process until nearly 50 chrysalides were hung.

The chrysalides arrive twice a week via overnight delivery. They're shipped by breeders such as The Butterfly Farmers, located on a 5-acre spread near Fort Myers, Florida, where 5,000 to 6,000 caterpillars munch their way through foliage and flowers each day until they bloat to maximum size, shed their last larval skin and morph into chrysalides. Then they're ready for shipping to zoos and botanical gardens.

Breeders carefully line up the precious cargo in rows between cotton batting like newborn babes in a nursery. They enclose a newspaper-wrapped cold pack, the kind kids use in their lunchboxes, to keep the box a chilly 40 degrees. Such cold temperatures are like chrysalis cryonics — the butterflies don't spring to life again until temperatures warm up. Every box contains between three and 10 different species — each with distinctive chrysalides — depending on availability.

Taylor picked up a chrysalis that looked like Egyptian jade adorned with a band of golden specks. “This is absolutely jewel-like. Wouldn't you love to have a pair of earrings like this?” she said. “It’s a miraculous metamorphosis, that this chrysalis will become a butterfly with a 3-inch wingspan. It’s hard to believe that inside are all the things necessary

to create a beautiful butterfly.

With patience and good timing, visitors can witness an adult butterfly drowsily breaking out of its pupa shell. It emerges with small, shriveled wings and an over-sized body. It quickly pumps fluid into the veins of its wings, which expand like an inflatable life raft. Within about a half-hour, its exoskeleton hardens and the wings become rigid. As many as 30 take this bold step into butterflyhood in a day; "sometimes they pop like popcorn," McGinn said.

The Desert Botanical Garden prefers to hatch butterflies from the pupa stage. "They are healthier and live longer that way," McGinn said.

Still, even the longest-lived butterflies spend ephemeral lives among the flowers; most last no more than two weeks. To keep the Butterfly Pavilion well populated, the garden also receives overnight deliveries of about 400 live butterflies every two weeks from butterfly farmers. Like the shipments of chrysalides, the boxes are cold-packed to keep the butterflies dormant. Inside, small glassine envelopes each hold a butterfly, its wings closed and perfectly still.

One Friday afternoon, McGinn brought two boxes to the pavilion, where she handed visitors envelopes to open and free the butterflies that had warmed up and were ready to fly. A vacationing retired couple from Minnesota laughed as white-speckled queens soared out as soon as they opened the envelopes. Meanwhile, Julias lazily perched on their hands and arms like dreamers reluctant to wake up. "This is the highlight of our trip to Arizona," the woman told McGinn with a broad grin.

This up-close-and-personal interaction with butterflies represents just part of what the garden has to offer. Visitors also attend classes on butterfly gardening and entomologist-led talks on butterflies and moths. To attract butterflies in their own gardens, they can buy flowering shrubs at the annual spring and fall plant sales.

Inspired by the wonder and fascination for these fragile insects, many people reflect for the first time on ecological concerns, such as changing their use of pesticides and supplementing lost habitats with their own landscaping. "We create an environment that makes people stop and think," said McGinn. "By coming to the exhibit, visitors will hopefully realize there's a delicate balance between plants, wildlife and people."

Beyond the spacious 36-by-80-foot sanctuary for butterflies, the rest of the gardens recently underwent its own dramatic $17million metamorphosis.

At the garden's gateway, a hogan-shaped ramada with a rusted woven-metal roof shades a bubbling fountain and concrete benches. The entrance path, lined with bunch grasses rippling in the breeze, leads to a monumental spiraling agave terrace made of stone and filled with century plants. Underneath the shady canopy of the new Steele Entry Plaza, benches and a drinking fountain lure visitors to stop and linger amid a mix of smooth desert spoons, round golden barrel cacti, branching cholla cacti and knobby totem pole cacti.

Inside the garden, the new Boppart Courtyard, dappled with shade from paloverde trees and creosote bushes, borders the Desert Studies Center's four new buildings: the Nina Pulliam Research and Horticulture Center, which houses a new library, herbarium and two laboratories; the William J. and Barbara B. Weisz Learning Center with large outdoor and indoor classroom space; Dorrance Hall, an elegant reception hall flanked by a patio and gallery; and the Marley Education & Volunteer Building. An exit path winds past the sunken spiral garden filled with agaves, desert spoons, desert milkweed and swaying deer grasses. Near the exit, plants and garden-themed gifts stock the new garden shop.

Amid all the new, old favorites remain in the Desert Botanical Garden, which opened in 1939 to exhibit, conserve and showcase arid-land plants of the world. Today it houses the world's largest and most diverse collection of succulent plants in an outdoor setting. Many can be seen from the one-third-mile Desert Discovery Trail, which winds past some of the garden's oldest plantings, including an old man cactus, Cephalocereus senilis, whose wispy spines look like a white beard; saguaro "hotels" housing starlings and finches living in holes originally carved by woodpeckers; and mesquite trees, whose trunks glisten with inky sap that Indian artists once used for paint.

During the spring, the wildflower trail loops through a wash of colors - yellow brittlebush, blushingly pink penstemons and blue desert lupines - that reveal the beauty and diversity of North American desert wildflowers. The meandering trail leads past separate gardens in natural settings: a boulder outcropping, desert floor and shady streamside habitat. An open-air pavilion provides an idyllic resting spot with a view of the surrounding Papago Park's red buttes and rolling hills just outside the garden.

Even an arid Sonoran Desert spring presents a bounty of blossoms, whether as wildflowers dotting the landscape like dabs of an artist's brilliant paints or a floating bouquet of butterflies flitting through the crisp air a reminder of the annual renewal of life. AH After Lori K. Baker of Mesa leamed about the plight of butterflies caused by widespread pesticide use, she began buying only organic produce.

The journey that butterflies take on their way to release in the pavilion fascinates David H. Smith of Phoenix. He enjoyed watching children's faces as they discovered the world of butterflies.

BUTTERFLY SILENT, BUTTERFLY BEAUTIFUL and other Indian myths

According to Tohono O'odham Indian stories, the Creator sat one bright summer day under a pine tree watching a group of laughing children at play. A brown pup romped through a riot of wildflowers. The sun blazed in a blue sky dotted with wispy, white clouds. A songbird landed in the branches overhead, loosing a shower of pine needles. The Creator watched the play of shadow and sunlight and falling yellow leaves fluttering here and there in the late summer breeze, and as he watched these things, he grew sad. Soon these children will grow old, he thought. And that puppy will become a tired, mangy dog. And the flowers will die and snow will cover the land.

The Creator became so sad at these thoughts that he vowed to preserve the afternoon for the months ahead. "All these colors should be caught forever," he said to the songbird that watched him from overhead. "I will make something to gladden my heart, something for these children to enjoy."

He took out his magic bag, and in it he put the black from a laughing girl's hair, the brown of the pup's floppy ears, the yellow of the fluttering leaves, a bit of blue sky and a touch of white from a passing cloud. He added green from the pine tree and the orange, purple and red from the flowers. Overhead, the songbird sang her merry tune, and with a smile, the Creator tossed a bit of her melody into the mix.

Brimming with happiness, he walked to the children and offered them the bulging sack. The girl with black hair opened the magic bag, and out flew thousands of butterflies in every color ever created. Enchanted, the girl said she had never seen anything so beautiful. The other children agreed, and the Creator was glad.

The children danced with joy under the quivering wings of these new, fanciful creatures. Then one with wings the color of a summer sky landed on the Creator's head and began to sing a beautiful song. The other butterflies joined in, and the children stopped to listen to the chirping melody. The songbird flew down to perch on the Creator's shoulder. "When you created the birds, you gave us each our own song. Now you have passed mine around to these new playthings of yours," she scolded. "Isn't it enough that they have all of the colors of the rainbow?"