13 Beautiful Host Plants For Butterflies

Cloudless Sulphur butterfly larvae love partridge peas. Like this butterfly, this plant is from the southeastern US.

1. Partridge Pea

As larvae, black swallowtail butterflies prefer parsley. Some call black swallowtail caterpillars parsley worms. Caterpillars can kill parsley in days!

2. Parsley

Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly larvae prefer Apiaceae hosts like fennel and parsley. The caterpillars eat fennel fronds but not the bulbs.

3. Fennel

The Apiaceae contain parsley, fennel, and dill. This plant attracts butterflies. Your yard will attract Eastern Black Swallowtail butterflies using dill!

4. Dill

Butterfly larvae live on these plants. Add phlox to your pollinator garden to attract adult butterflies.

5. Phlox

Another food source for mature black swallowtail butterflies is blanket flower. These perennial daisies are from North and South America.

6. Gaillardia

Tropical and subtropical South America, Argentina, the eastern US, and southern Ontario host the Long-tailed Skipper butterfly. The butterflies' brown wings have large glassy spots.

7. Long-Tailed Skipper

Many bean-damaging caterpillars become butterflies. This gives caterpillars the name bean leafrollers. Leafrollers hide as larvae by cutting and rolling leaf pockets.

8. Bean Plant

These butterflies like beans and peas. Before the long-tailed skipper lays its eggs, peas mature in the cooler season, therefore caterpillars are less plentiful than on beans.

9. Pea Plant

Native to North America, hog peanuts are legumes. They grow wild in eastern North America and Canada, like the long-tailed skipper, but not in home gardens.

10. Hog Peanut

Wisteria vines bloom magnificent blue-purple. Better better, its legume family attracts adult Long-tailed Skipper butterflies! Offers nectar and food to pollinators.

11. Wisteria

Many bougainvillea vines, shrubs, and trees are lovely. South American perennial bougainvilleas attract adult Long-tailed Skippers.

12. Bougainvillea

This host plant (tithonia) loves heat and drought. Adult Long-tailed Skippers adore it. Plant these flowers from seed to attract pollinators, hummingbirds, and butterflies.

13. Mexican Sunflower

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