The Brimstone Saga

Alan Beaumont

In the ‘A Flora of Suffolk’ by Martin Sanford there are no records of the two larval food plants Buckthorn and Alder Buckthorn of the Brimstone butterfly in the north east of Suffolk. This corner of Suffolk lies between Lowestoft and Hopton and is to the north of the river Waveney. The absence of the larval food plants is evident in the scarcity of the adult brimstones in the area. It is uncommon in our ‘wildlife’ garden. We decided to purchase a buckthorn shrub and eventually contacted a nurseryman in Cambridgeshire who was fortunately coming to the Street Fair in Bungay. He would bring a specimen with him, although he only had a few. We purchased the potted Buckthorn he brought. Whilst we were positioning the 6-foothigh specimen in front of our 8-foot-high south facing wooden fence a female Brimstone flew over the fence and laid 7 eggs on the leaves of the Buckthorn. It was the first Brimstone we had seen in the garden this year, the 14th May. The butterfly had obviously detected the aroma of the plant for it was not visible. Of the seven eggs laid we bred one indoors from early in

June. This larva fed much faster than the six on the food plant. This meant we had to feed it each day with at least one new leaf. We observed the larva pupating in June and its subsequent emergence. We did not see any more larvae on the plant and can only assume they were fed to the Dunnock that breed in the garden! Adult and Pupa by Alan Beaumont