Native Plants Are Important For The Atala

Native plants are important. The madman keeps saying this. But the point really hit us during our road trip to southern Florida.

We told you about our trip to the Everglades in our last blog. But we didn’t tell you about the gardens we visited. All but one featured native plants. And even that one devoted large areas to native flora and habitat.

A Gem Of A Garden

The most exciting gem was a small botanical garden just outside the city of Key West. This garden illustrated the importance of native species. The madman saw the sign “Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden” on our way to Key West for a sunset cruise. After all, you can’t visit the coast of Florida and not take a sunset cruise. (It was lovely, by the way).

We figured we’d start the next day (our last) at the garden before heading back to Key West. We never made it to Key West. The garden was just too fascinating. As we entered, we saw the most bedraggled plants we’ve ever seen in a botanical garden.

We Meet The Director

As luck would have it, Executive Director Misha D. McRAE was passing by and took the time to chat with us. He proudly explained those straggly plants. The Coontie (Zamia integrifolia), is the host plant for a butterfly long thought extinct – the Atala Butterfly (Eumaeus atala), also known as the Coontie Hairstreak. Director MacRAE pointed out the caterpillars and the larvae that covered the plants we had spotted.

Much like the relationship between the Monarch and Milkweed, the Atala will only lay eggs on the Coontie plant. Fortunately for the Monarchs, there are several species of Milkweed. But there is only one Coontie. The Coontie is Florida’s only native evergreen cycad. Other cycads grow in Florida, but they are not native.

Toxic Native Plant

The Coontie is toxic, but Florida’s indigenous peoples made a starchy flour from its roots. Early settlers learned the technique from the natives and soon made an industry of producing the flour. Before long, the Coontie began disappearing. Without the Coontie, the Atala couldn’t reproduce and it also disappeared. By the 1930s, everyone thought it to be extinct. When they passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, the Atala butterfly didn’t make the list. No need to protect it, it was already gone.

And, here the story gets really interesting. Since the Atala lays eggs on the Coontie plant, that’s where the madman thinks the story began. And, it began a long time ago. Like all Cycads, the Coontie is an ancient plant. Many of them were here when the dinosaurs roamed the earth – a time before the evolution of flowers. The Coontie was the smallest of them at 2-3 ft. Even today, these plants don’t have flowers. Pollen is found on the cones of male plants. They are pollinated by weevils who first visit the male cones, the move on to the female cones.

Poison As A Defense

Coonties thrive in the sandy soils of south Florida pinelands. They tolerate sun and shade, but prefer partially shaded areas. Evolving along side large plant eaters, Coonties and other cycads survived by producing a toxin, cycasin, that made them unpalatable. Although the substance is toxic to humans, native tribes learned to process the roots making a starchy flour. They taught the process to early European settlers which turned out bad for the Coontie plant.

The starchy flour was in demand and soon factories were harvesting way too many plants. With a 5–6-year window before Coontie plants could be harvested, no one was growing Coontie plants to replace those harvested from the wild. Without Coontie plants, the industry collapsed.

Back To The Butterfly

And here, we’ll pick up the story of the butterfly. Similar to the majestic Monarch, the Atala butterfly is host specific. Over time, it developed a mutualistic relationship with the Coontie. Caterpillars were immune to the toxin. But it made them distasteful to would-be predators. In return, the droppings of the caterpillars provided fertilizer to the Coontie plant. The relationship flourished over time. And, even in the 1800s, observers noted large populations of the Atala butterfly.

By the 1930s, the butterfly had lost its host plant to overharvesting. Scientists believed it to be extinct. In 1973, no one bothered to include the Atala in the Endangered Species Act. As it turns out, that exclusion was a good thing because in 1979 naturalist and botanist Roger Hammer discovered an isolated population on a small island in the Florida Keys.

No Protection

Because the Atala wasn’t listed as endangered, it was not protected. The larvae could be moved. Since this discovery in 1979, the Atala butterfly is being reintroduced to the areas where it once flourished. With the help of humans and the winds of Mother Nature, populations are increasing.

At the same time, landscapers are reintroducing the Coontie as a carefree native landscape plant. Still, the madman and others worry that homeowners may not want to share the Coontie with the butterflies. Yes, the larvae will strip the leaves, but the green leaves will always come back. The madman’s fear is that homeowners looking for perfection in their plants will find the stripped leaves unacceptable and the caterpillars a pest. The response may be the use of pesticides and the Atala may again be in trouble.

Back To The Garden

But it will never be in trouble at the Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden. The whole garden was amazing. We felt like we were back in the days before civilization took over the area. It’s the only frost-free native plant botanical garden in the United States. For beauty, it was a toss-up between the sunset cruise and the garden visit until we sat and watched the Atala butterfly.

We visited four other gardens and natural areas in Florida – each of them with their own charm. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden with its Rainforest and the Spiny Forest of Madagascar. Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park with its mangrove thickets. Bahia Honda State Park with its nature trails and white sand beaches. And the National Key Deer Refuge with its alligators, birds and small Key Deer.

We could tell you about all the beautiful plants and areas we saw in these gardens, but we feel no story could be as powerful as the return of the Atala Butterfly and its message about the value of planting native species. The madman says, “Dig out invasives and plant natives.”

Message delivered, time for hot cocoa.