ALGER COUNTY, MICHIGAN – The Hiawatha National Forest (HNF) in cooperation with the Superior Watershed Partnership are seeking volunteers to help with seeding a few thousand cells with common milkweed and a mix of pollinator nectar plants on Thursday, April 17th from 10am until 3pm (pot luck lunch at noon) at the Forest greenhouse located at 1030 Wright Street, Marquette.
Common milkweed is an important host plant for the Monarch butterfly and a critical component in our pollinator habitat restoration. HNF is planting milkweed at critical areas for pollinators and has been for a number of years through projects such as the old farm field restoration on Grand Island. There since 2008 through the help of Life of Lake Superior volunteers and others we have introduced back into the landscape nearly 10,000 common and swamp milkweed plants. In order to provide necessary habitat for a suite of pollinator species such as monarch butterflies, hummingbirds, bumble bees, moths and bats we have planned pollinator habitat restoration work the summer of 2014 at Stonington Peninsula where the nationally recognized monarch openings occur, Peninsula Point where we are removing by hand invasive non-native black swallow-wort from known monarch habitat, Sandtown near Nahma where we are removing by hand invasive spotted knapweed from monarch habitat along Lake Michigan shoreline, Grand Island National Recreation Area at the old farm field restoration site and three large grass land openings (Dunklee, Baldy Lake and Ready Lake) where we are introducing a mix of pollinator species plants in order to provide greater plant and future animal diversity within the openings.
Understanding monarch butterflies is truly a mystery and a magical aspect of nature. A few fun facts about monarch butterflies… did you know common milkweed is the host plant for monarch butterflies? The female monarch butterfly lays only one egg per plant on the underside of milkweed leaves. Within roughly 3-6 days a small, creamy colored caterpillar about the size of a pin will emerge and begin feeding on that milkweed leaf. From birth it only takes about 6 hours for the caterpillar to change from its creamy coloration to yellow, black and white stripes. And did you know one caterpillar can consume up to 20-30 leaves before it is full-grown! Monarch caterpillars eat plants only in the milkweed family. In North America we have over 100 known species of milkweed, although monarch’s have been documented feeding on only 27 of those species. Monarchs sequester a poisonous cardiac glycoside from milkweed, thus effectively protecting them from predation. Once they shed their skin (about five times) the caterpillar will be about 2 inches in length and it weighs almost 3,000 times more than it did at birth! After the 5th shed, the monarch butterfly will create its chrysalis. It will take between 9 to11 days for the fully formed monarch butterfly to emerge from its chrysalis. Our adult monarch butterflies migrate nearly 2,000 miles south to Mexico and arrive in Mexico around the first of November.
Interested volunteers may help for an hour or more. No experience is needed because we will work alongside you and explain various aspects of native plant propagation. For further information please contact Deb Le Blanc at 387-2512 (extension 20) / email dleblanc01@fs.fed.us -or- Sue Rabitaille at srborealis@peoplepc.com.
