Big Butterfly Count

My garden is planted with Butterflies and other insects in mind, with food plants and those for laying eggs, Redwing. Ten years ago, I could count 6 or 7 varieties of Butterflies but over the years they have declined considerably. This year I have seen some Cabbage White [one or two], one Fritillary...........and that's it. I have hundred of Bees working away but Butterflies are becoming a rare thing.There's something seriously wrong in the UK

 

Eutrochium is a North American genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the sunflower family. They are commonly referred to as Joe-Pye weeds. They are native to the United States and Canada, and have non-dissected foliage and pigmented flowers.

The genus includes all the purple-flowering North American species of the genus Eupatorium as traditionally defined.[1] Eupatorium has recently undergone some revision and has been broken up into smaller genera.[2][3] Eutrochium is the senior synonymof Eupatoriadelphus.[4][5] Eupatorium in the revised sense (about 42 species of white-flowered plants from the temperate Northern hemisphere) is apparently a close relative of Eutrochium. Another difference between Eutrochium and Eupatorium is that the former has mostly whorled leaves and the latter mostly opposite ones.[6][7] Eupatorium and Eutrochium are both placed in the subtribe Eupatoriinae, but South American plants which have sometimes been placed in that subtribe, such as Stomatanthes, seem to belong elsewhere in the tribe Eupatorieae.[3]

Species[8]

• Eutrochium dubium (Willdenow ex Poiret) E. E. Lamont– Coastal Plain Joe-Pye Weed
• Eutrochium fistulosum (Barratt) E. E. Lamont – Hollow Joe-Pye Weed
• Eutrochium maculatum (Linnaeus) E. E. Lamont – Spotted Joe-Pye Weed [9]
• Eutrochium purpureum (Linnaeus) E. E. Lamont – Sweet Joe-Pye Weed, Green-stemmed Joe-Pye Weed, Queen of the Meadow, Gravel Root, Kidney Root, Purple Boneset
• Eutrochium steelei (E. E. Lamont) E. E. Lamont

Medicinal[edit]
Joe Pye (Jopi in the Native tongue), an Indian healer from New England, used E. purpureum to treat a variety of ailments, which led to the name Joe-Pye weed for these plants.[10] Folklore says that Joe Pye used this plant to cure fevers. Folklore also states that American colonists used this plant to treat typhus outbreaks.[11] The author Hemmerly writes that the Indians used Joe Pye Weed in the treatment of kidney stones and other urinary tract ailments.[12]


Bumblebee pollinating Joe-Pye weed

Whorled leaves of a Joe Pye Weed. Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina

 

Good afternoon this is the best year for years for my local butterflies ,but bear in mind I do go searching for them with my camera and my garden has also been changed to attract butterflies plant wise,plus I have Ranscombe Park Farm within a stones throw from my house

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&r...e.aspx&usg=AFQjCNEivKnwIldumUVgfVj6lhLtldbmTw