By Melanie Weiss

A friend recently asked me, “Who calls who? I think flowers seduce butterflies.”

It’s a good question. Yes, flowers seduce butterflies, but their relationship is a two-way dance of attraction and exchange. It’s all about reproduction and survival of the species. Flowers create patterns, colors and fragrances that are attractive to butterflies and other pollinators. Pollination occurs, allowing the flowers to reproduce. Butterflies visit flowers for the life-sustaining nectar that nourishes them as they mate and lay eggs.

I recently read that pollinators have a negative electrostatic charge caused by flying. Flowers, which are stationary, have a positive electrostatic charge. As a pollinator approaches a flower, the pollen literally rises to meet it … albeit only a very small distance! This is similar to what we see when we rub a balloon on a rug, causing our hair to rise as we move it close to our head.

Butterflies pollinate flowers by carrying pollen on their wings and body. They’re not as loaded with pollen as bees, but they’re part of the dance. The wonders of the natural world are boundless!

(The attraction between butterflies and their host plants, as opposed to nectar choices, has a few additional twists.)

G’num2026Vol27No2