Swallowtail butterfly on Texas lantana

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Here you have what I think is a black swallowtail butterfly, Papilio polyxenes. The colorful flowers, which make their debut in these pages today, are Texas lantana, Lantana urticoides. In the 1800s this plant was also known as a calico bush, but calico has gone out of fashion and so has that name. Also no longer in vogue is the previous scientific name for this species, Lantana horrida. How someone could ever have thought these lovely flowers horrid is beyond me.

This is the seventh and last in a series of pictures from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on July 23.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman

NOTE: Yesterday, at the request of a commenter, I added a closeup of the central part of the saltmarsh mallow in that day’s post.